by Jens Lapidus
Kum took a sip of his drink. He was close to Teddy now. Short—shorter than Teddy remembered. But Mazern still seemed to loom over him like some kind of threatening tower. Teddy thought about what he’d said.
He asked: “What kind of car d’you drive these days, other than the X5?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“You’re a man, aren’t you? You like cars?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t have any other cars, then? Out here, you’ve surely gotta have at least two.”
“Yeah, of course, my wife has a Golf. Then I keep my babies elsewhere. You can come for a spin sometime. I’ve got an old Porsche 911 from eighty-two, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, then I’ve got a ’rari.”
“What model?”
“Ferrari California. From last year. It’s my favorite. When you turn the key…you should hear the sound. It’s like it wants to eat you up.”
“That must mean you drive, then? You don’t take the tram?”
“Of course I don’t. Who do you think I am?”
Teddy replied: “I know exactly who you are.”
Kum took another step toward him. As he did so, Teddy noticed that the gorilla behind the bar had moved.
“You don’t want to believe in change, Teddy. You’re just like the Swedish state. They’re still hunting me, but I’m a new man now. Just because I paid no tax for years, like we all did. Now they want me to pay millions. It’s not a dignified way to live, but I’ve got no choice. That’s the reason the cars aren’t in my name. All the crap the state keeps going on with; someone else has to front the businesses, this place is in my wife’s name, you know what it’s like. The state’s like a terrier. Once it gets a hold, its jaws lock. Don’t be like them, Teddy. Free your thoughts.”
Teddy got up. He could see the signs of age on Mazern’s face now—the gray flecks in his stubble. The furrows on his cheeks. The creases on his forehead. He’d been at the top, ordered Mats’s kidnapping. And Sebbe Petrovic linked everything together somehow.
Teddy moved closer. Didn’t back down. Two inches from Kum. “I hate to repeat myself…”
Pause for effect.
“But I’m going to crush you unless you tell me exactly what happened with Mats Emanuelsson. You’ll regret not talking to me now. I want to know exactly who asked you and Ivan to order the kidnapping, and what the point of the whole fucking thing was.”
He could smell the Slivovitz on Kum’s breath.
“If I was still my old self, Teddy, I wouldn’t just kill you for that. I’d take every single member of your family and crush them like insects.”
28
Emelie and Teddy were at a table in Wienercaféet. Eating breakfast. Having a meeting. Almost two weeks had passed since the drive-by shooting. The mood was tense. It was the first time they’d met since.
Brass details, wooden interior, glass counters, marble tabletops. French-bistro style times a thousand, like so many other places in Stockholm right now. That was the weird thing about this town: everyone wanted to be individual, unique, but they all followed the exact same trends. Not that it mattered: the espresso and breakfast sandwiches were fantastic, and there was a back room where they could talk in relative peace.
Teddy was brief. He didn’t feel like he’d made any progress. Dead ends no matter which way he turned.
Emelie went over what she’d found in the safe-deposit box. And recounted her conversation with the estate agent about who’d signed the contract for the house in Värmdö.
She told Teddy about the number and letter combination she’d found on the note in the bank: MTCNFE 30230403. After a little searching, she’d worked out that it stood for Money Transfer Control Number Forum Exchange. In other words, it was the number used when money was withdrawn from an account with Forum Exchange, a chain of the currency exchange. A so-called tracking number.
She’d gone to a branch on Götgatan. Shown the tracking number to the young woman behind the thick armored glass.
“Yep, that’s right,” she’d said brightly. “You can withdraw a cash transfer using this code. But I’ll need to see your ID or passport.”
Emelie handed over her driver’s license.
The cashier had long brown hair and incredibly long nails.
“Sorry,” she said. “I can’t let you make the withdrawal. It has to be someone else, I’m afraid.”
Then Emelie had an idea. She’d said: “Can I have it all in a blue plastic bag?”
The cashier looked like Emelie had just asked something inappropriate.
“Didn’t I just say that with your ID, I can’t do anything?”
Emelie had been about to leave, but then she’d had another idea. Behind the cashier, in the small space behind the glass, there were piles of envelopes and headed paper. She looked at the envelope and the note she’d found. The same logo, the same business: Forum Exchange. But they looked slightly different all the same.
“Can I ask you something completely different?”
“Of course.”
Emelie held up the envelope. “Was this sent from you?”
The woman looked like she wanted to take out a magnifying glass to inspect it—there was nothing wrong with her willingness to help, anyway. She’d said: “Yes and no. That’s what the envelopes and paper look like when they come from our head office on Vasagatan.”
The businesspeople had started to leave the café, making room for old ladies in their seventies, with permed hair and dressed in camel-colored knitted sweaters.
Emelie and Teddy were trying to work out what linked it all. One thing was clearly of great interest to them: the man who’d acquired the house on Värmdö in the Spaniard’s name was probably Sebbe Petrovic, the same man who’d been in business with Mats, his poker backer.
The old ladies around them peered at Teddy. He was strange, belonged to another world. He wasn’t the kind of man you could go for a walk around town with, the kind you could introduce to your friends or potential clients. And that poor woman, Sara—what were his feelings for her?
He was different today. His eyes were dark, pushed her away.
“All I know is we’re not getting anywhere, but Mazern knows more than he’s letting on,” he said. “Sebbe was one of his men.”
“What do you want to do, then?”
“I’m not planning on giving up before Kum realizes he has to talk. Help me. This shit’s going to blow up, but who cares. I swear, he’ll give in. He won’t be able to cope when I get going.”
“Teddy, we’re in this together. What are you going to do?”
He took out his wallet and put a hundred-krona bill on the table before he got to his feet. “You just don’t get it.”
She had to get back to the office. The SLA negotiations were done, but then she’d ended up in a due-diligence case. It was mostly supplier and customer contracts, employment agreements, stock option programs, and environmental and building permits. In truth, it was a small DD—most projects like that involved considerably more material—but they’d given her the project to handle alone. The business being sold was a refuse-collection company, so its most important assets were the agreements it had with the city and county authorities. The buyer had made a tentative offer of twenty million euros.
Still, Emelie didn’t move from the café once Teddy left. She took out her laptop. She needed to gather her thoughts. Try to summarize what they did and didn’t know.
First of all: they still had no idea who the dead man was. She’d tried to read up on it, and it seemed unusual for the prosecutor to keep a murder victim’s identity a secret. There was rarely any real reason for it—it wasn’t like the victim was at risk from any external pressures. But sometimes, they just couldn’t determine who the victim was. Maybe that was what was going on here: whoever it was had been shot in the face, and unless they were in the fingerprint or DNA register, the prosecution only had dental records to go on. The problem in this particular case was that their teeth were
probably damaged, so even that might be difficult.
Secondly, it wasn’t just that someone had had their head blown off in the living room. Something had also happened in the hallway—there were flecks of blood there, too, and from someone who’d been on their feet. In the best of worlds, the police would’ve found the blood just like they had—but she couldn’t be sure of that. Only time would tell what the police did or didn’t have in their investigation.
Thirdly, the house on Värmdö didn’t seem to be anyone’s permanent residence, but it seemed like someone had wanted to spend time there, in privacy, every now and then. That was strange—there was an alarm system, furniture, and a certain level of decoration, but the place didn’t really feel like it had been lived in.
And finally: she hoped Teddy would manage to hold it together. What she’d seen today had scared her: he was a different man. Someone a hairbreadth from snapping. Maybe this was what he’d been like nine years ago, before he went inside. Maybe it was his normal self.
The Forum Exchange on Vasagatan was bigger than the one she’d visited earlier. She tried the same procedure at the counter. Gave them the tracking number and asked for everything in a blue plastic bag.
This time, the cashier reacted differently. “Sure,” was all she said, without even asking for ID. Twenty seconds later, she handed over a money bag as fat as a wallet. Emelie opened it and peered inside. Bills: it looked like thousands of euros and Swedish kronor.
There was a line behind her. The cashier wanted to move on to the next customer.
Emelie said: “Sorry, but I just need to ask, is it possible to see where the money’s from?”
“Well, I mean, it’s from here, like normal.”
“What do you mean like normal?”
“Whenever you ask for the blue plastic bag like that, Stig Erhardsson’s the one who arranged it. No?”
Emelie was speechless. She thanked the cashier. Googled Stig Erhardsson on her way out. She had a hit before she even stepped out onto the street.
Stig Erhardsson: not just anyone.
Stig Erhardsson was a bigwig.
She counted the money in the bag. More than a hundred thousand kronor.
29
In the car. Östermalm. Unmoving.
Teddy was waiting. Again.
Three days until midsummer. People were rushing around, moving like confused little birds.
In the exact same spot as last time. Banérgatan: Teddy remembered how he’d chased Fredric McLoud. How Magnus Hassel had grinned and said they would use the evidence of drug abuse to bring down the price by two hundred million. Emelie had told him the deal wasn’t quite final yet. That was why Teddy wanted to find McLoud today.
A memory, pre-slammer. Him, his dad, Linda, and little Nikola, visiting Darko in Malmö. Nikola couldn’t have been more than four. Teddy must’ve been nineteen, twenty—on the verge of the big jobs. Still, he’d gone down there with them; Darko had always been cool.
They’d taken Nikola to a beach, he didn’t remember which. The sand stretched out into the distance, big grassy areas, a couple of jetties, a campsite up toward the parking lot, mini golf, and what they called the party center. All that Svensson crap. People absolutely everywhere—it had been a good summer that year.
Darko: the good son. Remembered to bring a blanket and a box full of stuff: Coca-Cola, Maryland cookies, tiny sausages for Dad. Bojan didn’t even want to look at the Coke or the biscuits—restaurant man that he was. His brother had even brought collapsible chairs and mugs to drink from. Teddy hadn’t felt so Swedish since high school. Nikola had run straight down to the water’s edge. Despite the nine-to-five feeling, Teddy had enjoyed himself. Seeing Nikola shriek with joy as he ran into the water warmed his heart. They splashed about for more than an hour.
He went back up to the others. Linda was on the blanket, cutting up a melon. Darko and Dad were talking about NATO’s bombing of Serbia.
Life was peaceful.
That was when Linda had looked up. “Where’s Nikola?” she’d asked. They couldn’t see him down by the water. They went to look. He wasn’t in the water, either.
“He was here when you came up, wasn’t he?”
He had been, Teddy was sure of it. Where could he have gone?
They walked back and forth. Looked everywhere. Kids in swimsuits. Hundreds of four-year-olds. Nicko’s hair color, build, height: suddenly seemed to be Sweden’s most common appearance. But none of them were Nikola.
Shit, shit, shit. Teddy had waded out into the water. It was green. He’d tried to see into the distance. Look for hands waving, legs kicking. Kids gasping for air.
Children were leaping from the jetty, letting their parents throw them up in the air, splashing about with their inflatable rings and armbands. But no Nikola.
Linda started to cry. Bojan started to yell at Teddy.
Darko was silent, pacing back and forth. Trying to spot something.
Teddy was about to flip out—the man who normally kept calm. He’d wanted to shout to all the other damn people on the beach to shut up and stop moving for a minute so he could find his nephew.
The minutes passed.
Bojan: “Run up to the party center and see if they can help.”
Teddy sprinted off. They had a loudspeaker system there, and he got them to put out an announcement.
“We’re looking for a four-year-old boy by the name of Nikola, red swimming trunks; his mom’s looking for him.”
The minutes passed. Teddy could see Linda on the grass in the distance, a crowd around her. She had her hands to her face. Sobbing.
Nothing bad could’ve happened. Nothing could’ve happened to Nikola.
Teddy felt sick. He walked in circles, around, around, around. He didn’t know what to do.
Someone came up to him. “I think I’ve found your boy.”
He was on one of the jetties, a stick in his hand. Nicko, he looked so peaceful.
Linda, crying, had run toward him.
“Shhh, Mama,” he’d said. “You have to be quiet. I’m fishing.”
—
Teddy had talked to Tagg about what the business looked like these days. They’d met in Axelsberg a few days earlier. El Bocado: a pint for only twenty-two kronor. Tagg lived nearby, and everyone there said hello to him like he was one of the staff. He looked like he always did: weight lifter’s body with the stance of a mover, parted hair and stubble on his chin.
“What’s he do these days, Mazern?”
“Shit, T, got no idea. Ask Dejan.”
“I can’t talk to him about stuff like that, he doesn’t know which leg he’s meant to stand on. And he never wants to talk about Kum.”
“Aha, got it. Honestly though, I dunno. Five, six years ago, it was all blow, horse, whores, anything really. But now…sorry. Plus, I never did any of that, I’m in it for the game, the kicks. Me, I’m noble.”
“You’re not noble,” said Teddy, though he knew what Tagg meant.
“You know how it is. I never had anything to do with the dirty stuff. I’m a heist man, honorable. You know what I did time for.”
Teddy knew all too well. They’d shared a hallway for years. Aggravated robbery on a cash depot outside of Eskilstuna. Tagg and a few other guys had planned it down to the very last detail. They’d even test-driven the escape car along the different routes. The haul: more than eighteen million in cash, a huge amount for four guys from the hood. They were pros, laid low the first few weeks, stayed home in their flats, watched every season of The Sopranos and Entourage. Didn’t go into town, held off on the champagne, didn’t dance on any tables in the clubs around Stureplan, and didn’t blow thirty grand a night on women. But it all went to shit anyway. One of the guys got stopped on a routine check, acted super nervous, and for some reason the traffic police decided to look in the long bag he’d shoved into his car: it was full of dummy guns. The rest was history. The fake guns matched the weapons the robbers had been using in the CCTV images, and they als
o found Tagg’s DNA on them. The cops started to wind him in: they started doing house raids, found a computer, managed to recover some deleted files, found a link to a landlord in Eskilstuna, got in touch with him and showed him pictures of Tagg. “Have you seen this man?” Sure, the landlord knew him, Tagg had rented an apartment in his building, right opposite the cash depot.
“Some of your guys might know though, no?” Teddy asked.
Tagg took a swig of his beer. “Maybe. I can give you some names. You can ask them yourself.”
His face suddenly lit up. “By the way, I heard from Loke you ordered some stuff from his pharmacy.”
“Yeah…but I can’t talk about that.”
“Honestly, man, you should try his boner pills. They’re the shit. My girl loves it when I pop those.”
So: the past few days, Teddy had been talking to Tagg’s friends. Ali with the knife, Crazy Calle, the Snail Man, and the rest. Some knew a little, passed him on. “It’s not like when you were in the game, man,” they said. They remembered his name—trusted him. They said the Swedish Slavs were practically extinct these days. Others had taken over: the Syrians, Kurds, Tigers, Taxi Aslan and his haulers. Summa summarum: Mazern had switched to shadier activities. Played in the big leagues now—where Tagg’s boys had no info.