by Jens Lapidus
The apartment: a studio with a kitchen. The walls were bare, and there was a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. On the floor, a double bed. The sheets were crumpled. The place smelled of perfume and jacked-off dick.
Chamon led them into the kitchen and closed the door. His eyes glittered. There was a stack of unwashed plates in the sink.
“Okay, we all get a go, but you’re up first, Nicko. However long you want. I did a sweet deal with Darina.”
He opened the door and pushed Nikola out. “Congrats, man.”
They closed the door behind him.
The woman was sitting on the edge of the bed. When he looked closer, he realized she wasn’t a day older than he was. Pinkish lipstick and high-heeled shoes. Dark eyes and dyed-blond hair, at least two inches of growth at the roots. It looked weird: her heels and dressing gown combo.
“So, you are Nikola?” she asked in English.
“Yes.”
“What do you like?”
His face burned. He was standing about three feet away from the hooker. It felt like she could read his mind.
“It is first time?”
Nikola nodded.
“Sit down.”
He sat on the other side of the bed. Darina moved over to him. He felt a hand on his shoulder. She started massaging his back.
He wanted to get up and leave, but he had no idea what he would say. For some reason, he thought of his uncle: an image of a visiting room in a prison somewhere. Nikola and Linda on a two-hour visit. He was maybe fourteen. Teddy’s voice: “You take a bit of me away with you every time you come to visit. I love you for that.” His uncle had been locked up for eight years. Nikola wondered what he’d done about women?
After a few minutes, Darina took a firmer grip on his shoulders and turned him toward her. She took off her dressing gown. The light was lousy. Her body looked gray. Her breasts were small, almost triangular.
She lay down on the bed in front of him and held out a tub of lube.
“I help you,” she said.
Nikola took the tub. He was on his knees on the bed. Unbuttoned his jeans. Closed his eyes for a second.
Right then, the door flew open. Chamon came in.
“Abri, sorry ’bout barging, but we got a problem.”
Nikola did up his pants.
Chamon: “We gotta go. Yusuf’s got trouble in Bårsta. Some motherfucker banging on about him cheating. We’ve gotta go help.”
Nikola climbed down from the bed.
It felt as though he was swaying.
Stockholm County Police Authority
Interview with informant “Marina,” 11 December 2010
Interview leader: Joakim Sundén
Location: Älvsjö Centrum
MEMORANDUM 2 (PART 2)
Transcript of dialogue (continuation)
JS: You said that during 2005, you had gambling problems and that Sebbe threatened you, that he wanted three million kronor back in two weeks.
M: This is still totally off the record, right?
JS: Absolutely. It’s just for me, so I can build on it. You’re giving me information, that’s all. I’m the only one who knows about you, and you have immunity. I’d like you to keep going through everything.
M: Okay, okay. I’ll try.
I had no idea how I would get the money for Sebbe together. Even if I was having one of the best weeks at the club and online, it’d be virtually impossible. I’d never even won a tenth as much money in such a short space of time. But I had no choice.
So I phoned in sick and stayed home playing all day—for some reason, I didn’t want to spend too much time in the club. It felt embarrassing in front of my friends there. And so no one I knew in that world would realize I was spending so much time on those sites, I registered new usernames.
The days passed. I was hoping Sebbe would change his mind, give me more time, but I couldn’t even get ahold of him.
I’ve played lots of games in my life, but the ones I played in those two weeks were the craziest. I took risks I’d never taken before, at levels I’d never even dreamed about, and just in Pot Limit Omaha rooms, mostly against Chinese and American players. The wins weren’t steady, though. One day I brought in sixty thousand euros. The next, I lost thirty thousand.
I forget games quickly, but there’s one I’ll never forget. I’d managed to get about a million kronor, and I was in a no-limit room on a site called Poker Kings.
It was a hell of a hand, and we were playing stupidly huge stakes. When the hand started, we each had fifty thousand euros in chips. I placed big blind, a thousand euros. Everyone folded, apart from small blind, who hung in. I checked, a queen and seven, both diamonds. The flop was ace, queen, four—two of which were diamonds. The other player, Balrog666, checked, and then I raised like a fool—ten thousand euros. For some reason, I was sure my queen was good enough, since Balrog666 should’ve raised if he had an ace pre-flop, but if he’d found something, a pair of fours, for example, I knew he’d keep going to the end—he, or she, I don’t know, did it all the time: overestimated the value of their hand. That’s why I raised like I did—worst case, I’d still take the fifteen hundred euros already in the pot. But that bastard went all in, completely unexpectedly. He could’ve just as easily had as great a hand as the pair of fours. Like I said, I’d played Balrog666 a few times before, and he or she was normally cocky at first and then careful toward the end, but they did some crazy bluffing sometimes—it was impossible to tell right then, because they seemed to be going for it with all their chips. I just thought: Okay, let’s do this, I’ve only got one chance. So I called it, forty thousand euros. Balrog666 had a double ace. Insane. Do you know poker?
JS: Only vaguely.
M: The chances of that bastard sitting on double aces were tiny, especially since he hadn’t raised before the flop. But he’d tricked me. I was in serious trouble. I was about to flake out. I didn’t know what to do. I’d probably just lost more than I’d managed to bring in over the past few days.
I held my breath, closed my eyes.
Then it was the turn. It was a diamond. Do you understand?
JS: No.
M: The cards I’d been dealt in my hand, they were both diamonds. At the flop, two more diamonds came out. And then another one. I had a flush. As long as it didn’t all go wrong on the last card, I’d take the whole pot.
JS: What happened?
M: It was a glorious six. I took the money. A million kronor.
JS: Wow.
M: Yeah, it was fantastic. I almost started believing I’d manage what Sebbe wanted.
But I didn’t have much time left, and I couldn’t bank on always being that lucky. So I started resorting to different methods. First, I tried to sell our car online, a Renault. A few buyers came to look at it, but they thought a hundred thousand kronor was too much. So I lowered it to ninety, and then some other people turned up, wanting to buy it for eighty.
I sold my stereo and the boat from our place in the country. I even sold the sofas and chairs from out there, too. I couldn’t touch the house and the property itself, because they were in Cecilia’s name. I sold my shares in Nordea. I increased the mortgage on our apartment by three hundred thousand. I couldn’t get any more than that because we already had a big mortgage. Then BlueStep loaned a further two hundred thousand, at nine percent interest. They took the last of the apartment as security.
I took out ordinary loans with Konsument Kredit and Collector. I thought that if I filled out the forms and sent them off on the same day, they might not see the other’s decision and be willing to give me more. I even begged two of my best gaming friends, Bosse and Boguslaw, to loan me some money. They realized I was serious, but I never told them what it was about.
With two days left, I’d managed to win close to a million and a half, and I’d pulled together more than eight hundred and fifty thousand by selling my life and mortgaging my family. But I still wasn’t quite there. Sebbe wanted his three million on a pla
te.
So that’s when my forty-eight-hour race started. I planned to join the real high-stakes rooms online, not take any breaks. I told Cecilia I had some really important work thing and that I’d need to stay in the office for the next few days. She didn’t really understand that kind of effort at work. She worked as an administrator for the county board.
“But you’ve been ill,” she said, putting her hand on my forehead. “Has your fever gone?”
I didn’t like lying to her, but at the same time, I could hardly tell her the truth. I pushed her hand away.
“I still don’t feel great, but there are a few things I need to take care of. It’s nearly summer, and I’ll be finished with this, so I promise not to put off taking a vacation because of work this year. Maybe you should just go out to the country now?”
Cecilia smiled her crooked smile, the one she normally used when she didn’t quite trust me but wanted to show she’d understood anyway.
“Okay,” she said, “but do you promise? Four completely free weeks with us this summer?”
I kissed her on the forehead. “Absolutely,” I said, trying to sound calm.
I had four different sites open, two games on each. I’d never tried to play that many at once before, but I wouldn’t make it otherwise. So I loaded up with coffee, PowerBars, and energy drinks. I slept three hours in the middle of the day and two in the early morning, all to maximize the amount of time I had with the big guns in the U.S. I used eyedrops once an hour and drank a huge amount of water. I put five spoonfuls of sugar in every cup of coffee, played Beethoven’s sonatas on the stereo, and set an alarm on the computer to remind me to get up and stretch once an hour. It would’ve been a catastrophe if I got a cramp in my arm or back just then.
I’d never played better or more intensely ever before. It was like all my experience and mathematical ability fell into place. I started to see patterns in the very basis of the game. I could see structures in my opponents’ games that I hadn’t even thought to look for before. I understood the very essence of Omaha, the heart of the game. I outclassed them all.
But time ran away like the energy drinks I was downing. I’d stopped getting up every hour. There wasn’t time. Sebbe would be back that evening.
Forty thousand euros left, roughly four hundred thousand kronor.
Then he turned up in one of the rooms, or maybe it was a she. Balrog666.
I realized it was my chance. Balrog666 wanted to win back what he’d lost a week earlier. He’d play high, and that was exactly what I needed.
It was insane. We were both taking risks like newbies, but the whole time I was playing with my new understanding of the game. The feeling of being on a higher level than the others.
After two hours, I’d managed to bring in another hundred thousand or so. It was great, but I wasn’t there yet.
I was running on caffeine and sugar and sheer determination. My eyes were watering, my head was pounding. I didn’t bother going to pee even though it hurt. You can’t underestimate the power of the adrenaline that starts pumping in a good game.
I noticed how Balrog666 was getting more and more careless. With half an hour to go, it was just the two of us left.
I had the chance to win the rest of the cash I needed. It would all be over. I could shut down the computer, wait for Sebbe’s call, and then just lie down and sleep.
I had my moment. A chance I had to take, I went all in. I could just see it, how there might be a couple of hundred thousand left over once I’d paid Sebbe. How I’d be able to repay the debts to my friends and maybe buy back the furniture for the place in the country.
But instead, I lost more than forty thousand euros.
I died.
Sebbe called an hour later.
“You got my money?”
“Absolutely. Nearly. I’ve practically got three million. Just give me another day, I’ll fix it.”
“Mats, what exactly is it you don’t get? I want all my money, and I want it tonight. Now.”
The click on the other end of the line was like a gunshot.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
I was so relieved Cecilia and the kids had gone away. I peered through the peephole. It was him—Sebbe. Maxim was next to him.
“How’re we gonna fix this, then?” was all he said when he stepped into the hallway.
His eyes were like a shark’s. I remember that one of my legs started to shake uncontrollably. But then I took a deep breath.
I did actually have an idea.
It was ten in the evening, the start of my new life—the reason I’m sitting here with you now, more than five years later.
Memo continued on separate sheet.
8
The gym. The rhythm. Left hand first.
Clean shot. Always draw back the fist the same way it had come. Power from the hips. Strength in the stomach.
Boom, boom, boom.
Like a cobra.
Left-right-left. Always keep your guard up. Always twist your foot with the punch, stay steady.
Focus on your target. Feel your range. Ignore the other girls’ determined faces. Everyone was landing punches like machines around her.
Forget everything else.
She just didn’t know how well it was working today.
Jossan was always going on about CrossFit and HIT—high-intensity training. She said that in twenty minutes flat she could burn calories and increase her strength more quickly than in any other exercise she’d tried. And she’d probably tried every kind of yoga going in this city, every kind of group training class at SATS and Balance, plus the firm’s own running club, led by Jacob Lapin, the former marathon runner.
But in Emelie’s world, nothing came close to tae kwon do.
Right-left. Hook-uppercut-elbow.
Her fists hit the pads Leo was holding up. Mata, mata, mata. He was holding them at head height, shifting around the blue rubber floor, and Emelie followed his movements. Chin against chest. Eyes on the pads. Breathing through her nose. Back leg moving first with each step. Million Dollar Baby.
When Leo asked them to wind down and stretch on the mats, her arms were shaking.
—
Emelie’s luck: the Husgrens negotiations with the Chinese had broken down that morning. Disappointed, Magnus had declared: “You can all put down your pens. We can’t charge any time from now on. If anything happens tonight, I’ll let you know. Keep your phones on.”
She should prepare for the court proceedings that would probably take place tomorrow. But she couldn’t concentrate. Why hadn’t Teddy been in touch?
At first, when Benjamin mentioned him, she hadn’t understood.
“I only know one Teddy. Do you mean Teddy Maksumic?”
Benjamin had nodded once.
And then he had disappeared again.
—
“Everything okay?”
Leo tapped her on the shoulder as she was about to go into the changing room to shower.
Emelie had been training at Östermalm’s Martial Arts Center for two years now. It was a genuine basement club, nothing fancy, just white-painted walls, the usual blue flooring, and sandbags hanging from huge hooks on the ceiling. There were photographs from Leo’s golden years in reception, back when he’d won gold in tae kwon do at the Swedish championships and taken bronze at the European games.
“Yeah, think so. Why?”
“Just now, at the end, when you were going for me, I don’t know…it was like you disappeared a little. Like your killer instinct was gone.”
Emelie wiped a drop of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. She hoped he wasn’t right.
She was last into the showers. Most of the other girls just went home in their workout clothes; they lived nearby. It was ten in the evening.
She grabbed the showerhead and directed the jet of warm water at her legs. She needed to shave them, but she hadn’t had time these past few weeks. Jossan would laugh if she could see them
, start calling her the gorilla or the fur coat or something like that. Not that it mattered at all. Emelie had no plans to show her legs to anyone in the near future, and besides: if that anyone couldn’t handle a few hairs, that was their problem.
She dried herself slowly with the hand towel. Suddenly she heard the muffled sound of her phone in her bag. She saw Teddy’s number.
“Tell me what this is about,” he said bluntly.
“You know Benjamin Emanuelsson?”
“Maybe.”
She explained. About Benjamin’s condition, about the very little else she knew. She told him what he’d said to her. The only thing he’d said to her: “Make Teddy understand.”
It was weird, everything about it.
9
It was time for him to do his thing. He’d been in bed all day.
In the end, Yusuf had called. “Thanks for yesterday, man—what a fucking mess. Great you came and told those sons of bitches where to go. Ha-ha. Gonna need you to go get the stuff now.”
“Where?”
“Gabbe’s.”
Nikola’s stomach turned. Hot weapons. He’d been asked to go to Gabbe’s and pick something up before, but back then, it hadn’t been him the piece was for.
He didn’t know what Gabbe was called, aside from Gabbe, but it had to be a short form of Gabriel. The guy lived alone in a terraced house on Gårdsvägen in Enhörna.
And you only went to Gabbe’s at night.
He looked up and down the street. It was dark, but he could see the lights from a bar in the distance. Only two of the streetlights were working. Dumb kids must’ve been dicking around with rocks or something. There were low wooden fences and hedges in front of the houses, and behind them was a line of enormous BBQs. Nikola could respect people who blew money on their cars. But BBQs—what was that all about?
He peered over the fence outside Gabbe’s part of the street: a wooden deck, two plastic cane chairs in place of a grill.
The house looked dark inside. He rang the bell.