Never Fuck Up: A Novel

by Jens Lapidus

  And tonight was the first Monday in November. Definitely: time for attack. He knew that Mats Strömberg would be home late without a car. Operation Magnum was entering the next phase.

  Niklas’d rented a neutral vehicle, a gray Volvo V50. Didn’t want to risk the Mats fucker recognizing the Ford as the one that’d been parked outside his house for so many hours over the past few days. The guy could start wondering. The Volvo was perfect: no one noticed a car that dull.

  Waited. Outside the pub where Mats Strömberg was sitting, all happy. It never got boring, strangely enough—letting time lapse with nothing to do but to stare out through the window. Strömberg shouldn’t be allowed to be happy. Four days ago, he’d beaten up his wife in front of their son. She just cried. He just hit. The son hid behind the couch.

  Niklas wasn’t going to take him out here in the city—too many people around. Instead: he would trail the guy out to Sundbyberg. And there, on the street, at a spot he’d identified and analyzed: an end to the tragedy.

  His cell phone was on silent. It was in the bag on the passenger seat. Still, he could feel it vibrating as if it’d been in the pocket of his jeans. The display showed: Benjamin. This really wasn’t the time to talk. On the other hand, Niklas might need Benjamin’s help again. His cash problem was too much of a reality to ignore.

  “Hey, it’s Benjamin.”

  “I can see that.”

  “Where’ve you been these last few months? Fuck, man, this is the first time we’re talking in God knows how long. Did you go back to Iraq, or what?”

  “Hey, I can’t really talk right now. What do you want?”

  Benjamin was silent for a few breaths too many. Obviously surprised by Niklas’s brashness.

  “If you’re gonna be like that you might as well go back down to the desert. I don’t give a shit. Dammit, man, you’ve screened my calls at least ten times lately.”

  That was true. Niklas’d chosen not to pick up the phone, screened the calls, even ignored his voice mail. Focus, that was what mattered, not a bunch of pointless phone calls. Still: his money was running out.

  “I know, I’m sorry. I’ve been swamped. What is it you want?”

  “I think you’re gonna wanna hear this. If you didn’t already check your messages.”

  Niklas thought, I can’t take this.

  Benjamin went on. “The police called me a couple weeks ago. Brought me in for questioning and everything. I was there in the middle of October, I think. Take one guess what it was about.”

  “No idea.” Niklas felt a pang of worry.

  “It was about that thing this summer. Remember?”

  “What?”

  “Quit it. Know who they were asking about?”

  Niklas’s anxiety was rising. He already knew the answer. It could only be one thing—damn it.

  “They were asking about you.”

  “Why?”

  “Remember when you asked me to say that you’d been over at my house all night?”

  “Yeah, but what did they say this time?”

  “You never told me what that shit was about, man. What the fuck did you drag me into? They interrogated me for at least two hours. Pushing me like crazy. Did we really watch a movie? What did we see? When did you get to my house, when did you leave, am I sure about the date? Get it?”

  “You didn’t say anything, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. But I don’t know, man. You didn’t tell me what the deal was. Murder, man. Niklas, what the fuck is this, anyway? This is insane. Murder.”

  “I don’t know any more than you do. I have no idea. I’m being totally honest. Do they suspect me of something?”

  “How the fuck am I supposed to know? Murder, man. Come on, Niklas. What is this about?”

  Niklas felt himself grow hot and cold at once. How did this happen? He didn’t have an answer for Benjamin.

  He was at a crossroads: no way he could take this kind of crap. At the same time: Benjamin’s alibi—invaluable. He had to grovel like a fucking brownnoser.

  “Yeah, it’s about some dead guy that was found in my mom’s building. They brought me in for questioning too. And Mom. Some poor sucker who was beaten to bits down in the basement. They really brought out the heavy artillery.”

  “Okay. But what does that have to do with you? Why’d they drag me in there and interrogate the shit out of me again? And what did you need that gun for?”

  “Nothing, that was just for fun. And about the dead guy in my mom’s house, I honestly don’t know. No idea. But if I’m a suspect I guess they would’ve picked me up ages ago. But you know, with my background, things can get messy with the police no matter what.”

  Silence.

  More silence.

  A drop of sweat along his temple.

  In a low voice, Benjamin said, “We’re buddies and all, but . . . but this is getting kind of big, I think. What am I getting out of this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’ve got your back like crazy right now, man. And what’s in it for me? You don’t think I deserve something for making up a story about that movie night?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? You want money?”

  “I don’t know. But yeah, yeah I do, actually. Don’t you think that’s fair? I’m putting my neck on the line for you. You’ve gotta be a little generous.”

  This was just too much. First the illegal broker, then the vehicle swap and the rental, and now this: a comrade who betrayed. Went the blackmail route. What was he supposed to say? He had to offer the asshole something.

  “I didn’t expect this from you, Benjamin. But how about this, you did something good for me and that ought to be worth something. I can pay you five grand. I don’t have more than that.”

  Benjamin made a smacking noise with his mouth.

  “I’m glad we understand each other. Double that and we’ll be completely clear.”

  At midnight, Mats Strömberg and one of his friends stumbled out of the pub. Flushed face. The fogie scarf sloppily tied.

  He jumped into his buddy’s car, which, it turned out, was parked three cars in front of Niklas.

  Not good if the buddy was planning to give Strömberg a ride all the way home. But Niklas’d seen it before—most often, the Mats asshole was dropped off by the Central Station and took the commuter rail out to Sundbyberg.

  Niklas trailed the car without a problem in the light traffic.

  Just as he’d expected: Mats Strömberg was dropped off at the Central Station. Walked down to the commuter rail. Niklas’d thought the whole thing through. Had studied the commuter rail timetables for the evening and night. Mats would catch the 12:22 train out toward Bålsta. Might be delays. Niklas checked the traffic info on his smartphone. Tonight, the 12:22 train was running according to schedule. It would take him nine minutes to drive out to Sundbyberg in the night traffic. The train only took seven minutes, but it didn’t leave for another eight minutes. He was safe.

  On the highway, one thought running through his head: the shots had to hit the right spots. Take him down quickly. The job had to be done fast and clean. In Operation Magnum, no wounded targets were left behind.

  He parked the car about a hundred feet from the exit to the commuter rail station. Rolled down a window. Waited. Cold air streamed in. Checked the train schedule one final time on his phone. The train would arrive in three minutes. He put the Beretta on his lap. A woman with a Labrador walked by on the street. Otherwise, the area was clear of civilians. He double-checked the chamber, the safety, the hammer.

  One minute left until the train was supposed to pull into the station below. Niklas bent down, checked again that his shoes were tied properly. Could feel it in his gut, like the hours before an attack. Small, small movements. As if they had a life of their own. At the same time: expectation, excitement in the air. Excitement over doing something for the greater good.

  Now he heard the shrieking of the train’s brakes. Looked at his watch. Niklas�
��d test-walked the stairs up from the platform and out through the station. Depending on where on the train the guy got off, it should take between thirty and fifty seconds.

  The doors opened automatically. Two people got off. No Mats. Then a family: the mom was pushing a double stroller filled with kids and the dad was carrying a sleeping child. After them: a couple of teens.

  Finally: Mats Strömberg.

  The flush on his face’d settled. He looked like a model citizen. Walked past the Volvo where Niklas was sitting. Niklas got out of the car. Thirty feet behind the target. The Beretta in his pocket. Strömberg walked at a normal pace. Four hundred yards to the domicile. In about 165 feet, he would cross over a small park. No streetlights there and no houses.

  It was almost twelve-thirty at night. Niklas didn’t see a single soul out except the target. He’d planned this so well, so long, not just in order to execute this perfectly, but in order to make sure he’d made the correct selection.

  One hundred feet left before the park. Niklas sped up. Twenty feet behind Strömberg. The guy didn’t seem to notice that he was being followed.

  Niklas put his hand in his inner pocket. Felt the warm steel of the revolver.

  The trees in the park were clearly visible, dark green.

  Niklas knew: aiming for the head is uncertain if you want the target to die. The head can move and is made up of parts that can bust without the victim dying: ears, jaw, skull, parts of the brain, even. The back, on the other hand. If you hit the vertebral column, the shot will be fatal instantly. What’s more: enough to shoot at very close range. Large, safe surface to aim at. If you miss the spine there is a great chance that you’ll hit the aorta, the inferior vena cava, or the large pulmonary artery. That’ll get the job done, too.

  Mats was ten feet ahead of him.

  To the left was a jungle gym that could hardly be made out in the dark. But Niklas knew that it was there. He’d made up his mind: this was the best spot.

  Six feet left.

  Mats turned around. Niklas met his gaze. Wondered if the asshole knew what was about to happen.

  Three feet. Niklas extended his arm. The black Beretta almost disappeared in the darkness.

  A shot.

  Immediately followed by another shot.

  Perfect hit. The bullets’ entry points should be about eight inches below the neck. He couldn’t see, exactly. Bent down. Mats lay facedown on the ground. Two small holes. In the correct spot on the back. The bullets’ exit points should be significantly larger, but he couldn’t check that now.

  Niklas turned around. Jogged through the park. Out onto the street: calmer steps. Back to the car.

  Three hours later. The Volvo: burned out, cleared. Any possible DNA traces’d gone up in flames. The weapon was washed and buried. Maybe he would use the same gun the next time, he hadn’t decided yet.

  He was an awesome soldier. A liberator. A hero.

  In the Ford on his way home from the charred skeleton of the Volvo, he stopped at a pay phone in Aspudden.

  A number of signals went through before anyone picked up. This was going to be a good call.

  Groggy or teary, he didn’t know how to read her voice.

  “Hello, this is Helene.”

  He’d promised himself to make it short.

  “Hi, I’m sorry to be calling in the middle of the night.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I wanted to inform you that I have just set you free.”

  “Who are you, what do you mean?”

  “I’ve removed him. You don’t have to worry anymore. He isn’t coming back.”

  He would’ve liked to speak longer with Helene Strömberg, she seemed sweet. But he couldn’t. Not right now, anyway.

  39

  Thomas was standing in the kitchen making breakfast. It was eleven o’clock. Last night’d gotten late. He hadn’t come home until close to 6:00 a.m. Åsa would be sleeping anyway, so it didn’t matter. He could come home at eleven-thirty or six-thirty—she didn’t know what he was up to, anyway. Dammit, sometimes the anxiety almost overwhelmed him. He woke up in a cold sweat. Impossible to fall back asleep.

  He’d gotten himself a nice deal at the traffic-control unit: worked part-time. Could do late nights at the club on so-called junior Saturdays, a.k.a. Wednesdays, and then sleep in. Flipped the day for half the week. Monday mornings were tougher than he could’ve ever imagined.

  There was an opened envelope on the kitchen table. Beside it, some paperwork. The words: Adoption Center. When he bent down he could feel his heartbeat speed up. It couldn’t be true. Please say you’ve found something for us. Something I can live with.

  The papers felt tacky, sticking to one another. He was nervous, his hands were trembling, he tried to read calmly. Lots of filler words. Information has been verified. A doctor has been consulted. Our ambition is for the family not only to receive word of the child as soon as possible, but that the information received also be as accurate and complete as possible. How much information we have been able to collect about the child, however, varies a great deal between different countries and areas. He read through it, even though he kept wanting to flip ahead. Maybe to prepare himself in case of bad news. He wondered why Åsa hadn’t called.

  Then there was a bunch of untranslated official Estonian paperwork, stamps, strange signatures. The pages that followed: descriptions of the orphanage, the boy’s age, condition, family situation. Rules for picking him up, demands for further permits, etc. And then, on the final pages: the pictures. Of Sander.

  The boy was the most wonderful child he’d ever laid eyes on. A sixteen-month-old angel, chubby, with pale blond curls and brown eyes. He loved the kid immediately: Sander. His heartbeat transformed into rhythmic bells of joy. For the first time in many years, he felt completely warm inside. Happy, he guessed. It was fantastic. He called Åsa.

  She picked up on the first ring. Bubbling with joy. Talk interlaced with tears. For once, Thomas didn’t get annoyed. He felt the same; they were going to have a son. They began planning right away. When they would pick up the boy, outfitting a nursery. Wallpaper, a lamp, a crib, a car seat, a stroller, a BabyBjörn. All the stuff Åsa’d heard her girlfriends go on about for years.

  Åsa said that she hadn’t wanted to call and wake him up with the news. She wanted him to see the surprise for himself in the kitchen, the way it’d been for her. Thomas laughed. Maybe he was too hard on her about needing his sleep.

  Goddammit—he was going to be a dad. He couldn’t decide: Laugh/cry. Cry/laugh. Laugh until he cried.

  He worked out up in the TV room. The joy was still there, underneath it all. But the other thoughts’d snuck up on him. It was more than ten weeks since he’d been transferred to the traffic geeks. More than eight weeks since he’d done his first job for his new employer. His side gig as the Yugos’ made man was better than he’d expected. The strip club was beginning to feel like home. Life changed so quickly. The way he saw his work. His attitude toward everything. It snuck up on him over the years, a tiny bit at a time. The temptations aren’t actually built into the job—they’re built into the person. And one fine day you find yourself in a wasteland, where it doesn’t matter anymore how you treat the rabble and yourself. When it feels normal. He often thought about his dad. Gunnar’d built Sweden. Believed that everyone deserved to come along for the ride. Back then, Thomas wouldn’t have let anyone ruin what his dad’d built. But now he wasn’t so sure anymore. How’d he been treated by his own? Ljunggren and Lindberg? Sure, they toasted him at their Friday get-togethers, but what did they do, really? Ljunggren’d agreed to be reassigned that night and not gone on the beat with him. His regret about it came too late, somehow. There was no police spirit when you needed it. In comparison, Ratko, Radovan, and the others he’d met were real men. Honest in their own way. They stood by their word, did what they’d promised. He was paid the salary they’d agreed on without written contracts. But most important of all—nothing leaked out to Åsa or the
cops. Thomas trusted the Yugos. More than anyone within the police force. It was strange, but true.

  So, no matter how weird it sounded, the job at the club imbued him with a kind of calm. It offered a slow, steady rhythm that he felt at home with. It was more his style: freer rein. Uppity johns at the strip club got a taste of Andrén if they grew too rowdy.

  Sometimes he did other things too—more complex, sophisticated. Participated in the security team at more high-class get-togethers. Swedish and foreign businessmen who wanted to have a good time. The strippers were glammed up to look like chicks with class, pro makeup artists were hired, young brats from the fancy Östermalm area organized the parties. Thomas didn’t see much of the actual events, but he dealt with the surrounding details. Taught the younger gym guys Ratko introduced him to how to use a baton and a Taser. Explained how to deal with a tanked fifty-year-old: calmly and correctly, but without taking no for an answer. Hard as steel. Made sure the right vests were bought, radio and walkie-talkie systems, belts, handcuffs, and gloves. He knew this stuff like the back of his hand. Ratko loved him. Maybe it was a breakthrough. Maybe he could do this full time.

  And then there was the major thing. That kept eating away at him. Like a Post-it note stuck to the inside of his forehead. The Palme thing. Leader of the Social Democrats during Thomas’s entire childhood and adolescence, Sweden’s prime minister. Murdered. The moment when Sweden lost its virginity. It was insane. Everything pointed to the fact that Rantzell was the murdered man he’d found five months ago. And Rantzell was Cederholm. And Cederholm—that name ought to ring a bell—was the key witness in the entire Palme investigation. The man who claimed that he’d given a Smith & Wesson revolver to Christer Pettersson. The weapon that half the trial’d revolved around. Had Christer Pettersson had such a weapon or not? Was Cederholm credible or not? What was the nature of their relationship? The questions were making his head explode. But worst of all: What’d he stepped into? He thought about the way Rantzell’d been killed. Professionally done. The sliced fingertips, the missing dentures, no other ways to identify the victim. At the same time: so cheap and simple. In a basement, bloody, messy as hell. There had to have been a better way.