“Wednesday.”
“You can’t question me.”
You’re standing there and just don’t want to. Just like you’re sitting here because you don’t want to go into that classroom over there.
“You’re twelve years old. I can talk to you if your mother is present.”
I’ve regularly picked you up, at home to begin with, when the school reported you, and when your social worker asked for a hand. She doesn’t often do that anymore. Even though that makes you not want to even more.
“Pigs who shoot dogs deserve to die! D’you understand? I’m not coming.”
“It’s your choice. That or be taken into care.”
“Fucking pig bastard . . . then I want a lawyer.”
“Lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“You can have a nanny, if you like.”
———
You run errands. You hide guns. You sell methamphetamines and heroin. You keep watch during the armed robbery of a jeweler’s shop, you take money from your classmates to threaten the teachers and abuse the teachers’ children, you fix a getaway car and burn it afterwards, you carry the tools for burgling a villa in Nacka and help take the goods away, you tell shop owners in Råby that rates have gone up and collect fees for protection that they never get. You will be exploited every morning and evening until you’re fifteen, until it’s you that’s doing the exploiting.
———
The fucking pig was holding him and he couldn’t get free. Then he managed. And ran toward his locker, opened it, I’m going to kill you, the towel was lying there under his math book and he wanted to get it out and use what was inside it, he held the gun in his hand and then let go again, he mustn’t touch it, mustn’t, Gabriel had said.
———
He tried to shut the locker door when the pig came over, but he couldn’t, not with the gun in the towel and the rucksack with explosives, maybe if he moved one of the files, if he pushed hard with his shoulder. The pig just stood there and watched him, and didn’t realize there was more than books in the way and then he left and Eddie shouted after the bastard coward, but louder now, I’m going to kill you.
He only realized afterwards. He hadn’t thought about it when it was all happening.
The deserted common room wasn’t as empty anymore.
He was alone again, but it didn’t feel it, the cop had been here, they had shouted at each other, and it wasn’t quiet anymore.
He walked out of the school building into the air that was not scheduled into timetables or classrooms, walked across the playground quickly into Råby, out of breath when he started to run along the asphalt walkways to the apartment with the orange door.
———
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
It was Jon who opened the door.
“I need to talk to Gabriel.”
You’ll keep it.
He was still out of breath, he hadn’t had time to wait for the elevator so his words were stuttered.
“It’s . . . important . . .”
“You’re not supposed to report before tonight.”
And you’ll keep it until I tell you that it’s time for us to use it.
“The rucksack, I . . .”
Jon opened the door a crack more and pointed to the doormat.
“You wait here.”
Until next time one of us is hauled in by the pigs.
He stood exactly where Jon had pointed. The others were in the kitchen, he could hear them, all of them.
“Well . . . what’s so important then?”
“Pereira.”
“What about him?”
“I have to go and see him.”
Jon almost smiled, gave a clear nod toward the sitting room. He was allowed to go in. He could go farther in. The sofa and movies and TV that was on with the volume turned up, but no one was there and he followed Jon’s back into the kitchen.
Gabriel was standing in the same place as the last time when he’d been making the bomb, alone by the short end of the table and in front of the fridge and sink. Big Ali opposite, Bruno to his right. They were all looking at something lying on the table. A pile of what looked like jackets. Eddie knew what they were. Bulletproof vests. Gabriel lifted up the one that was on top and put it down in front of him, then opened the boxes that were there, a big needle and a thick square bit of cloth; he positioned the piece of material on the chest of the vest and started to sew; the needle was thick and it was difficult to get through both the vest material and the badge.
“Ballistic neck protection. Ballistic shoulder protection. Kevlar protection plates. The police don’t have anything like these.”
Four stitches along each side, sixteen in total. Gabriel tried the badge, it was pretty secure. Then he put the vest on for the first time. And Eddie stood there in the doorway and was allowed to watch, it looked so good with their new name.
“Hold out your arms.”
Gabriel had seen him and was pointing at his arms, showed him how he wanted Eddie to stand.
“And then put this on over your head.”
The bulletproof vest, Gabriel’s new one. He seemed to want Eddie to put it on.
“Like this.”
Eddie was uncertain. Should he? Gabriel’s bulletproof vest? With the new name on the right-hand breast?
He wasn’t sure if he actually did it. Or whether he just thought that he did. Sometimes it’s like that, your arms just go out of their own accord. But it felt like he was holding them out from this body and like Gabriel took the vest off and put it on him.
Gabriel’s bulletproof vest.
That was probably why he didn’t react until after it had happened. The gun looked like one that had previously been in his school locker, a Smith & Wesson .45 caliber, the kind that produced a flash at the muzzle with every shot, a flash as long as his hand.
Gabriel fired two shots.
The first bullet hit him on the chest, just beside the badge. The second hit him in the middle of the stomach. It hurt more than anything he’d ever experienced, but he didn’t scream, you can’t when you’ve been winded. He couldn’t stay standing where he was either, his legs just crumpled, and he was on his knees facing the wall and there was still no sound, even though he was screaming and screaming.
They were laughing. Jon took several pictures on his cell phone. Gabriel pulled the bulletproof vest off him and they all gathered around. You could barely see where the bullets had hit, the material was undamaged, and when they felt it with their fingertips, the plate inside was dented, nothing more.
While Bruno sewed a badge on his new garment, Gabriel put his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and started to walk toward the sitting room. His ears were sore, ached and ached—he only noticed now that the pain in his chest and stomach was easing—the explosions had been loud and had echoed in the bare kitchen.
Gabriel wanted him to sit down on the sofa. He did, sat down on the sofa, he’d had tears in his eyes a moment ago and it had been difficult to breathe, but it was easier now, and the tears didn’t spill over, not here, he’d just been allowed to wear their bulletproof vest.
Gabriel sat down beside him, took hold of his T-shirt, and pulled it up, revealing the pale skin around two big round red marks. Eddie touched them gently with his finger, they were sore.
“They’ll get bigger and softer and in a few days they’ll go blue.”
Gabriel smiled and showed him his own stomach, the thickened, uneven, damaged skin.
“Fuck it, you look like me.”
Eddie couldn’t stop touching the tender red circles, they went in and would soon turn blue.
Gabriel had shot at him. And he’d stayed standing.
It would be fun to go to the police.
“I’m to go to Pereira. Day after tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Javad.”
Gabriel wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked at him. With eyes that sometimes hit you.
“And?”
“I don’t talk to no pig cunts.”
Gabriel continued to look at him with eyes that sometimes lashed out, but didn’t ask any more questions.
“You said . . . the rucksack. That I . . .”
“When you’re done. When Pereira has asked his questions, which you haven’t answered.”
The eyes again. Eddie nodded. Several times until Gabriel was satisfied.
“Then you say that you’ve got to go for a piss and choose the one just outside the room. Put the rucksack on the floor. Open the top of the cistern—the thing you lean your back against when you’re having a shit—and lay it upside down on the sink. Take the plastic tube out of the rucksack, peel off the paper on the sticking pads, and secure it to the underside of the cistern lid. And finally, before putting it back, cut off the wires that stick out from the end of the tube. Each one. It’s important that they’re as short as possible.”
New name. New rules. Preparation. Escape. Kidnapping. Murder. Newspapers. TV. Bomb.
Eddie watched Gabriel’s hands as they cut an invisible wire in the air. And when they took out the Rizla papers and put them on the table, filled a skin with tobacco from the pouch and two drops from the triangular bottle that always hung on a gold chain around his neck, when they rolled the cigarette, lit it and put it to his mouth, inhaled, and then passed it over to Eddie.
A deep drag, he smiled.
Gabriel had offered him cannabis oil on the sofa.
He trusted him to do the right thing in an interview with Pereira. He’d explained to him about the rucksack.
Another toke, even broader grin.
He’d even shot at him.
three days to go
Early morning. If it was even that. Maybe the tail end of the night. She lay back down on the bed and smoked a cigarette. There was still a strong smell of THC, the potent cannabis oil had saturated their pores, clothes, wallpaper. They had all been smoking when she got there, even the young kid was there, he’d looked really happy and laughed loudly when he tried on the bulletproof vests again and again and lifted his top several times and pointed at the two round marks that were as big as a five-kronor coin. She’d helped them carry all the new stuff down later, the things they’d been working on in the kitchen, the bulletproof vests and hoodies and T-shirts, with the new logo sewn or ironed on, their new name, they’d carried it all down into a storeroom in the cellar of Råby Allé 22.
She’d waited until the kid had gone and then asked Gabriel to get the others to do the same, but he’d refused, so she pointed to the bedroom and he’d followed her in and closed the door.
Now he was lying beside her just as naked as she was, and he was smoking as well. Soon they would hang up the blanket to keep out the sun, and she reached out a hand to stroke his cheek and he didn’t move, didn’t push it away, didn’t shout at her, and she knew that the time was right.
She rolled onto her side, stretched over to get hold of the plastic stick that she’d put on the floor under the bed so it would be easy to get hold of and held it up for him to see; he seemed to be calm still.
“See this?”
He leaned forward.
“Yes.”
“Can you see what it is?”
“A drug test.”
He automatically looked for the red plus sign and saw it.
“A positive drug test.”
He had pissed in public in every secure home, secure training center, and young offenders’ institution.
“No.”
“But I can see it. It’s red! Why the hell have you tested positive?”
Wanda gripped the stick even harder, her breathing labored in a way that wasn’t normal for her.
“It’s a pregnancy test.”
He didn’t move.
“Gabi?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Feel.”
She took his hand and put it on her stomach.
“Here.”
And tried to keep it there while she spoke.
“If you . . . it’s like a . . . sesame seed. Do you hear me, Gabriel? As big as a sesame seed! There’s . . . there’s a bulge in the middle . . . a heart. It’s not beating yet. But it’s there.”
She could normally tell what to expect from his eyes.
They were empty. She couldn’t see anything.
Not even his movements, when he stood up and left the room without a word, told her anything.
Gabriel had heard sesame seed and heart, but nothing more. He walked naked from the bedroom into the kitchen. Jon was sitting on a chair by the table drinking something and didn’t even have enough time to turn around. Gabriel’s fist hit him in the middle of the face. He went into the sitting room where Bruno was lying in the sofa, watching some movie or other when Gabriel grabbed hold of his T-shirt and pulled until they were both looking at each other—his forehead hard against Bruno’s nose and cheek, twice. His pants were lying on the floor and he put them on, his hoodie and socks were somewhere else. He ran barefoot to the car, wearing nothing on top. Out of Råby, onto the highway toward Södertälje, he drove past Botkyrka church at two hundred kilometers an hour and it was hard to see the road through his tears, but with one hand on the wheel he managed to open the glove compartment and nudge out a gun and check that there was still a bullet in it. He spun the cylinder that had room for six bullets and cocked the trigger as he normally did when he felt he ruled the world, but he didn’t feel like that, in fact, he felt the complete opposite. He pulled the trigger again, the clicking sound, and he cocked the gun, and pulled the trigger again, and again, click, click.
He stopped the car, cocked the gun for the fourth time, he closed his eyes and it clicked, two bullet chambers left, one full, one empty.
He pulled the trigger again and his eyes stung and watered even more when he dropped the fucking gun on the seat beside him.
two days to go
Eddie held on to the toilet door handle.
What had seemed easy at Gabriel’s and when he lay in bed waiting for the morning, was no longer as easy. His sleep had been fitful, as if he wanted to wake up the whole time, the hours in the dark had been in the way, then suddenly he was part of the day again and this.
He took a couple of deep breaths as he sometimes did when he was about to do something his body didn’t want to do, then pushed down the handle and opened the door, closed it behind him, locked it and put the rucksack down on the toilet seat.
INTERVIEW LEADER JOSÉ PEREIRA (IL): Now, let’s talk about Gabriel Milton.
EDDIE JOHNSON (EJ): Who?
IL: I know that you know him.
EJ: Don’t know who you’re talking about.
IL: See this picture?
EJ: Yeah.
IL: Råby Allé 67. Gabriel Milton’s apartment. And this is Gabriel Milton. And this, the person going into the apartment, is you.
EJ: Nope.
IL: No?
EJ: I’ve never been to that apartment. And I’ve never seen this guy. And that, that’s not me, I’m Eddie.
He’d jumped out of bed when the alarm clock finally went off, slicked his hair back with enough wax to make it shine, picked up his gold chain from the chest of drawers and clipped it on around his neck, checked in the mirror, and pulled down the zipper on his jacket so he was sure the chain was visible. The evening before he’d kicked in another window on the ground floor of the school and taken the rucksack from his locker; he’d kept it beside him in the bed through the night and he’d held it in his arms while he waited for his mom to get ready so they could walk the five hundred meters from Råby Allé 102 to Råby police station.
IL: Do you know what this is?
EJ: Pig papers.
IL: A PIR.
EJ: I know what a PIR is. Pig papers.
IL: The preliminary investigation report where Javad Kittu talks about Leon Jensen, Alexander Eriksson, Reza Noori, and Uros Koren.
Pereira had been waiting for them in reception, said he
llo and tried to be nice, then walked in front of them along the corridor and into the room where the Section Against Gang Crime sat. He’d been there twice before—at ten and eleven—and Pereira didn’t have the authority to question him, it felt cool when the pig bastard drove him home in one of the police cars and parked outside his stair. It was after that he’d spoken to Leon and Gabriel for the first time, and they’d instructed him about the next time, about rights, about accusations, but mostly that you could lie as much as you wanted when you were suspected of a crime.
IL: Do you know which case I’m talking about then?
EJ: No.
IL: Do you know who Javad Kittu is?
EJ: No.
IL: This photo, two people, you’re on the left, Javad Kittu on the right. You’re standing by the entrance to the metro. I can hold it closer if you like, so you can get a good look. I repeat, do you know who Javad Kittu is?
EJ: No.
He turned around and looked at his mother a couple of times while they sat on Pereira’s sofa; he’d tried to catch her eye but she’d just looked down, she nearly always did when he looked at her, it was a long time since she’d looked him in the eye.
IL: What does two bullets to the knees mean?
EJ: Someone’s talked.
IL: Here are two pictures of two knees. Can you describe them for me?
EJ: Blood. And skin.
IL: Anything else?
EJ: Holes.
IL: Javad Kittu’s knees. And two bullet wounds.
EJ: So this guy, this Javad’s the sort who talks?
He had sat across from Pereira just like he should. He had looked at him just like he should. He had sighed when the recorder was put on just like he should.
And he had answered just like he should.
IL: Look at the pictures again. Bullet holes in two knees. Do you know who fired?
EJ: You know that I can’t answer that question.
IL: Why can’t you answer?
Two Soldiers Page 15