The Swede (8 page)

B
ack in New York, three days later. Ben stood bony and curved like a bird carcass, coughing his lungs out over the sink. When he sank deeper in exhausted recovery, Grip walked in behind him in the bathroom. Their eyes met briefly in the mirror.

“How much do they pay?” said Grip.

Ben turned his eyes away, panting.

Grip slowly stretched his back against the doorpost. “Be sure to talk with them,” he said, and went out again.

I
T WAS DURING A STATE
visit with the royal couple in Hungary that Grip got an e-mail from Ben, saying a “sponsor” wanted to meet him in New York ASAP. A second e-mail contained a link for works by French sculptors. Scrolled past the Rodin bronzes, found the Jean Arps. Rounded, sensual shapes in granite, made by someone who must have liked touching women.

Grip opened his datebook as his earphone roared: “The queen wants to leave early.” It was dinner with the president, already past midnight. Grip sat at a computer in a single room that he’d found away from the dinner buzz. No response, on the radio. Grip glanced at some possible dates, marked one with a pencil, shut the calendar.

“I’ll take her,” he replied, getting up.

L
ess than a week later. Back from Hungary. Off duty. Another flight, then New York again.

The meeting was in a brick no-man’s-land near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Grip had an address, took a taxi. The place turned out to be a workshop for theater scenery and large department-store displays. Seven men were waiting inside, but two did most of the talking. It was obvious who they were, definitely pros—a group of cash-in-transit robbers with a few add-ons: extra muscle, capable drivers, that type. They used only first names, and the two talkers
had no visible tattoos. So far, so good. Eventually they unfolded a worn-out tourist map of New York, and the two walked through their plan. A truck was supposed to leave a freight forwarder’s storage facility at a specified time. That was all there was to it. No escort, no armored cars, no coded lock. Just a truck carrying a lot of stuff and two sculptures by Arp. Piece of cake.

But the men in the Brooklyn workshop were used to hitting armored cars, and they had a certain way of doing things. Guns, handcuffs, getaway cars, tire spikes. All undeniably well-thought-out, a surprise raid, complete with escape routes and torching of gasoline-soaked cars to destroy the evidence and fry the DNA. The sticking point was the loading—the Arps did, after all, weigh several hundred pounds. And that was the reason they’d brought in Grip.

Grip sensed that they already looked up to him. Without him saying a word, they seemed to treat him with respect. Ben had made up extravagant lies about his background. Although he hadn’t told Grip much, Ben confessed he’d told his contacts that the Swede was an experienced art thief. “You damn fool,” Grip had sworn when he heard about it the first time. “Art thief!” He had no idea what that meant anyway. What could he say? He wanted to call it off, had come close to postponing the meeting when Ben’s cough made him shut up. After the taxi let him off outside the workshop and he saw the lights and the men in the windows, he did a lap around the block—he was
that
close to getting the hell out of there. But really, what were the options? “. . . good money . . . you’ll be rewarded for your services . . .”

A first time for everything. He’d spent years among scum, but had never been one of them. That’s why his heart was hammering when he walked into the workshop, the pounding heart and
sweaty hands of a goddamn amateur. They shook hands and looked him over. Any second, he’d be thrown out. He was convinced of it. Beaten up and thrown out—at best. But nothing happened. Someone kept talking, mentioned names he’d never remember. His mouth was dry, he felt transparent, his back tensed whenever someone moved behind him. But then he saw the torn map and heard their plan. And at that moment, he got his nerve back. Not thinking about Ben, just about how easy this was. How easy it would be to pick up something that wasn’t his. It was the first time.

The men in the workshop weren’t idiots, but their plan was over the top, almost cartoonish.

“What about loading?” they asked.

Grip crossed his arms over his chest, said, “Just a sec,” and went back to the beginning, when fingers had started tapping the map. He scrapped the whole plan. Told them to forget about the weapons, the gasoline, the tire spikes. “Give the police a day off,” he said. And with little nods to places on the map, he rewrote it. The two who’d laid out the original plan stood there, the others sat. Grip explained the critical parts—how they could take the truck before it even arrived at the warehouse, just by switching drivers. No car chases, no flaming fireballs, no bloodthirsty guys shouting with stolen automatic weapons in their hands. It wouldn’t be a hit to brag about in the clink. But one peaceful afternoon in September, the Brooklyn police would keep driving right down Ocean Avenue, while not far away, someone with too much money was stripped of his two Arp sculptures. That was a security policeman’s perspective on things, if it had to be done.

Grip put the pen on the table and turned around with a look that said he was finished.

It took a second, then said one of the two leaders: “We’ll see.”

There was silence again.

From the start, instinctively, Grip disliked a man in the room named Romeo. One of the hired guys, an overweight jerk with a cap who jiggled his legs up and down like a cocky teenager. Now he snorted, but when everyone turned around, he said nothing, just smiled with contempt at Grip and shrugged.

“Shut up,” said one of the leaders.

Romeo pulled down his cap and shrugged again.

“So where do you come into this?” asked Grip, with a nod toward the leg jiggler.

“Who’s asking?” Romeo, older than Grip, rocked backward on his chair.

“He drives,” replied the one who’d told him to shut up.

Grip stared at Romeo. “People can’t drive with their head up their ass. Try to remember that.”

The chair’s front legs hung in midair. Romeo lifted his hand, urging Grip to come closer. He was just about to say something when the other man hissed: “He drives!” Cutting it off. Grip shrugged again.

Then the two leaders threw him a few what-if questions. It was mostly for show; there were no holes in Grip’s plan.

“We’ll be in touch,” they said then.

Grip stood for a moment, legs apart, and looked at them, memorizing their faces. Ben had assured him he’d only have to listen, give advice, not participate, not get caught. That was for laborers. A paid job that brought people together, with someone invisible pulling the strings. The men in the workshop didn’t know anything about an art expert—how Ben’s eyes and hands would eventually confirm that the pieces of granite were indeed authentic sculptures by Arp, protruding from the Styrofoam in broken crates. And Ben
was never one to mention names. So far, everything seemed fine. So far.

“You do whatever,” he told them. Heart not racing, palms dry. “If you use my plan, you pay.”

He left. Walked all the way over the Brooklyn Bridge and back to Ben’s apartment in Chelsea.

When he woke up the next night, it all seemed like a costume party. A kind of game. Like when drunk cops sat at home together and, instead of playing cards, slurred over the heists they’d dreamed up—how easy it’d be to pull them off. This time was hardly worse: a workshop, some first names, a torn map, and some good advice.

Nothing really, just a little talk. Right?

B
ack in Sweden again, Grip bought the
New York Times
every evening from the Pressbyrån newsstand at Central Station. Twenty-six days in a row, twenty-six front pages about Bush and Iraq, before the article finally appeared. Not large, but not small either. Two stolen sculptures by Arp, a fuzzy picture. A truck that disappeared, no violence—a footnote.

Ben phoned later that evening. Began by saying that he loved Grip, talked nonstop, maybe had been drinking, and ended by saying that
they
had paid. There was no shame in the silence between them. It was done. They said good-bye and hung up.

Autumn rolled along, a doctor treated Ben, and his cough went away. It could have been fine that way. It could have been enough, right there.

Weejay’s, January 21, 2005

W
HAT IF YOU ACTUALLY DECIDE
to take action?” It was Bill who said it, Bill Adderloy. Bill had slowly slipped into their circle. After calling Reza an idiot, he’d repeatedly turned up at their table with his cane, which was, it turned out, mostly for show. Slightly older than the others, Bill Adderloy had a grizzled beard that rose when he spoke. He smoked, wore long sleeves, and had a large ring on one hand. Like other Americans, he jingled coins in his pockets and constantly asked for more ice in his drinks.

“I mean—actually decide.”

He didn’t take the sting out of what he’d said with a laugh—the usual way out when someone touched on something serious under the palm-leaf roof. Instead he waited them out: Vladislav, N., Mary, and Reza. Bill Adderloy was serious.

By the time Bill joined them, circumstances had already changed. N. suffered from severe restlessness. The night with Mary had left him with an inexplicable anxiety, as if at the beginning of a good-bye. He was forced to drink more and more to fall asleep at night, and the fat bundles of banknotes in his bag now fit too easily in one envelope. The others were also down to eating fruit
for lunch, and even the generous Reza often paid for only his own Coke at the bar. Mary showed up later and later every morning and had started sleepwalking. Or at least, so N. thought. He woke up in his bungalow one night to find her standing next to his bed in just a white T-shirt, nothing else, looking at him. His first instinct was to lift the sheet for her, but then he hesitated.

“What is it?” he asked, seeing the whites of her dark eyes, not much more. She stood like that for an eternity, motionless as if he were a stranger, before she turned around and walked out. N. hadn’t been able to go back to sleep, not until he got up and locked the door from inside.

Everyone felt it, the undercurrent of untamed energy. Vladislav ran longer in the mornings, and on his swims his little dot of a head disappeared at the horizon.

“Fuck you,” he spat out between waves to the boat someone sent out after him one day.

Then Reza knocked out an Australian with a single punch at the bar. When the man’s two friends pounced on him, he shouted “Come on!” with such a vicious look that they all backed off. Afterward he wept, and said something about being immortal.

It was at such times that Bill would show up at their table.

“Impressive,” he told Reza that time, and sat down. He didn’t give a damn about the commotion right behind his chair, but raised a couple of fingers and a waiter came over immediately. The staff at Weejay’s were like flies on a sugar cube, or rather, like hyenas—hyenas around a lion that had just taken down its prey. He left good tips, never just coins. One served while two others calmed the screaming Australians. No one dared to say a word against the American.

With Bill Adderloy’s cigarettes came discussions. He rarely
puffed on them; his cigarettes burned down like incense between his motionless fingers as he laid out his ideology. He didn’t think much of his own country. Reza nodded in agreement without saying anything. N., unimpressed, stayed to get a couple of whiskies at the speaker’s expense. Mary was more engaged, argued on Adderloy’s side, while smiling Vladislav amused himself by provoking people for the sake of it. Their evenings turned predictable.

N. drank and tried to suppress his yawns.

One day Adderloy said, “No, you deserve it,” when they found out that he’d paid the Weejay’s bills for all four bungalows and their food. No one argued.

Another time, Adderloy seemed to know that Mary was from somewhere in Kansas. N. couldn’t remember ever hearing her say anything about it. Vladislav looked at Adderloy suspiciously.

“But what if you actually decide?” That was the instant their discussions took a different turn.

“Decide what?” Vladislav sat, his jaws tight. Mary listened intently.

It had started the night before, when Adderloy snorted at Reza: “Immortality—what’s your secret?”

Reza had responded with a malevolent gaze. He hadn’t forgotten that Adderloy had called him an idiot.

“That’s what you feel like,” said Vladislav, conciliatory, “when you’ve survived.”

“You feel immortal too?”

“Not immortal,” said Vladislav, and smiled his broadest white grin. “But strong.”

“I am truly immortal,” said Reza then, and leaned forward. “Right now, I mean—you do not understand. That day, the wave.” He ran both hands through his hair. His lips were moist, his mind
tuned to its inner images. “I went to bed late the night before. I fell asleep surrounded by relatives, thought I was sleeping in a city. It really was a city. There was a whole city around me when I fell asleep, but then when I woke up . . . My bed was in a room on the second floor, and I went to the window as I usually do.” He made a motion with his hand, as if he were in a vast, open field. He swallowed. “Everything was gone,” he whispered, “everything. Just me and the house left—nothing else, no one else. God forgot to count me in, I was overlooked.” He leaned back. “You understand?”

“God?” said Mary. “You think it was God. That’s . . .” She went silent.

“Immortal,” said Reza grimly.

“How can you believe . . . God, so silly,” Mary went on.

“Those hit by the tsunami, they died for our sins,” said Adderloy. “There are people who believe it.”

Vladislav shook his head. He looked at Reza.

“You’ve heard about them too,” continued Adderloy, raising his chin. “About the American church that celebrates what happened as God’s punishment. About their minister, Charles-Ray Turnbull.”

He looked at N., recalling the night they’d talked about the minister and his followers. N. wasn’t drunk enough yet. The anger took his breath away. His hands trembled. He remembered the pictures: the bloated bodies, the smiling minister called “Beloved Father.”
Thank God.

Adderloy fiddled with his ring, shrugged. “Those struck down were sinners, as simple as that.” He tapped his cigarette, and the ashes fell in the sand. “That’s the price, some say, the price of freedom in a country”—he kept looking down at the sand—“where anyone can say anything.”

“Is it really a church?” Vladislav wondered.

Adderloy paid no attention. “You know they celebrated, right? They were especially happy about the children. They think that—”

“Bastards, they deserve to die,” interrupted N.

Reza hit his palm on the table. “An American church.” He spat something in his own language and continued: “No American church can come here and talk about my sins.”

“Where’s that church?” It was N. who asked.

“In Topeka,” replied Adderloy. “Topeka, Kansas.”

“But aren’t you . . .” Vladislav looked puzzled.

“Yeah, I’m from Topeka,” Mary said.

Adderloy waited as glances went around the table, watching the glow of his cigarette.

“Mary and I happened to be sitting at the same table one evening when people got started on the fanatics and the demonstrations. That’s when we made the connection.” Then he said to Mary: “Go on, tell them about Charles-Ray.”

She said, her voice low, “Charles-Ray Turnbull is a hideous man. He often came to the hospital where I work, or worked.” She paused a moment. “He used to donate blood. I’m sure he still does. He needs the money.”

“They deserve—” continued N., angry again.

Adderloy looked up quickly at him. “Deserve what—deserve to be talked about?”

N. shifted uneasily in his chair, as if he had hit on something.

“And what if you actually decide to act?” continued Adderloy.

Reza replied with a snort.

“Decide what?” said Vladislav slowly.

Mary listened with narrowed eyes.

“They deserve to die,” repeated N.

“To give them payback,” replied Adderloy. Vladislav measured him with his eyes.

“Look at yourself, look at us,” said Adderloy. “We don’t exist. Beyond this stretch of sand . . .” He hesitated for a moment. “We’re all lost. From now on, we make our own choices. We have to seize this opportunity, the time is now. Convergences like these come only once in a lifetime.”

“For the chance to get revenge on the fanatics, sure. But you can do better,” said Vladislav. “Why us?”

“We all need money. How long can you keep up this life? A couple of months, and then what? Rent out lounge chairs, or buy a gas stove and a wok to cook for tourists when they eventually return to the beaches? Or become hippies like the other westerners who never made it out of here? You’ve seen them, toothless fucking hobos with their fifteen-year-old girlfriend on the back of their moped. No, we’re going to rob a bank and get a hell of a lot of money, and then lay the blame on someone more deserving. With a bang that gets the whole country’s attention. We frame the minister—and we kill two birds with one stone. We give Charles-Ray what he deserves, at the same time as we get a shitload of money.”

Vladislav gave a short laugh. “To give the loudmouth fuckers a taste of their own medicine.” He looked at Reza. “I like that.”

Reza jiggled both legs in his chair. “But he’s a blood donor—what does that have to do with it? How—”

“No one gets it,” said Vladislav. “Mr. Adderloy has worked it out, but he’s not going to tell us everything yet.”

Adderloy acknowledged him with a gesture.

“But to help him, he needs a few people who are invisible. And immortal,” Vladislav added, taking a fresh look at Reza.

“We don’t exist,” said Mary.

“Whether we do or don’t,” said Vladislav with a toss of the head, “we need money, obviously, for the life we want to keep living.”

“I have enough to start us off,” replied Adderloy.

“Once we get to Topeka, we can stay at my place,” said Mary. “It’s secluded, and big enough for all of us.”

N. hesitated. What was it they were about to do? He broke in: “What are we talking about here? Are we going to America to rob a bank?”

No one spoke.

“Well,” said Vladislav finally in a loud voice, “crusading has never been my cup of tea. But I have to do something. I need the money, and you, Bill, need me. I’m in.”

Adderloy’s eyes narrowed to slits as he took a drag on his cigarette.

“See you,” said Vladislav and got up from the table. When he left, it was with the same implacable calm as when he took his gun out of Reza’s hand and walked up to the wounded pelican.

“Not a big talker, but he makes his point,” said Adderloy when Vladislav disappeared. The only reply was the rush of the sea in the night.

“I think most everything has been said,” he added, dropping his cigarette into the sand. “Sleep on it. I can hardly be the only one tired of paradise.”