The Swede: A Novel

by Robert Karjel

  For several years Ben had been the manager of a gallery on the outskirts of the Flatiron District. The owner had made a fortune in industrial properties in Jersey, and his third wife convinced him to open their own gallery. But his wife soon lost interest, and the owner wasn’t around, so it was Ben who ran the place. He had pretty much lost interest too, but it kept him afloat. The gallery survived mostly on its annual show by a Jewish artist from Massachusetts. He was best known for his unsavory insects made from parts of real bugs, for his huge ball made from thousands of pieces of chewed gum, and for once having carved a bust of himself in an aspirin tablet. Some noted collectors had invested, and then David Bowie bought a piece; after that prices had only gone up. The artist himself was said to spend his money on high-stakes poker; for the gallery and Ben, it meant they kept going, no better.

  “Security police,” said Ben, thoughtfully rubbing his beard-stubble when Grip told him about himself. By then, Grip had moved in with him in Chelsea, and there were only two weeks left before he had to leave New York.

  “Security police—I thought only Bulgaria and banana republics had them. Security police, that’s what they say on the news when some human rights activist has been beaten or people have disappeared, that the security police have been on the move.” He gazed at Grip and crossed his thin arms. “In the real world, they’re always three letters: GRU, CIA, MI5. Am I right?” Ben was originally from Houston and could never shake the fact that he was a devout Republican.

  “You a good shot?” he wondered. “Two bullets from thirty yards, and both within an inch of each other, in the chest?”

  Grip shrugged.

  Ben liked it. Also Miles Davis, of course, though he never admitted it, and an occasional Hopper painting would be all right too.

  Grip went back to Stockholm. Farewell was no farewell; between their two cups of coffee that morning, they both knew that something had just begun. After breakfast Ben picked up clean shirts from the Chinese laundry on his way to the gallery, while Grip took a taxi to JFK.

  In Stockholm, Grip went to see the doctor again, this time at least getting to take off his shirt. And with that, he was back for real. The first thing he did on the job was submit an application for transfer. He wanted to join the bodyguard detachment, not least for the overtime. When they worked, they worked round the clock, and afterward were off accordingly. His old boss was furious, called it a hell of a waste. But Grip had performed enough unholy services under his direction. “I’ll still need you sometimes.” Grip nodded, and with that, the man who would always be the Boss had signed his consent. Then Human Resources did their usual thing: checked his loans and bank accounts, asked him to fill out some routine papers about his family. Dad was dead and Mom senile, no problem. And really, what would they ever find out by asking people to tick boxes? If something happened, a real scandal, a juicy revelation, at least they could pick up their sheet and say, We did our best to screen out people with black marks in their past. Ticks in the box. Everybody happy.

  Grip got his royal family assignment and bought two new suits with room for a bulletproof vest underneath. Then it was business as usual: some official state visits, strolling down the cobblestone streets of a market town, subduing drunks, Solliden Palace in summertime, then a trip to the Riviera. He trained in rapid firing on the shooting range and listened to the latest concoctions from the threat analysts. Like everything else, these went in cycles, sometimes fixated on the stone-throwing Left, sometimes just blurry pictures of bearded Palestinians. They never talked about the lone crazies, the outliers, the ones they never could get to anyway. And so Grip gazed out over the public gatherings, over the people with their outstretched hands, looking for the ones in the background who just stood quietly, staring, preparing to leap.

  He got to knee two German paparazzi, that was all. Autumn came.

  The bodyguard detachment was the security police’s refuge for the divorced, newly divorced, and never married. Their stories were mostly of compassionate lies and failures. Life without the earphone was life on a different planet; for many, their civilian time was a wasteland. In any event, everyone minded their own business. Their mountain of overtime compensation was the captain’s biggest problem, and what his staff did when he could find gaps to send them away, nobody cared about. “Lundgren, von Hoffsten, Grip, take ten days—now!” Lockers were slammed, cell phones turned off. Maybe they took the time to have a beer, usually not. A few brief nods. And so each headed out on his own.

  Grip didn’t even pack—he already had what he needed in New York. He usually landed sometime after lunch and then headed to the gallery. It took no more than a glance and a smile over Ben’s shoulder as he stood talking with a customer. Certainly they missed each other, but there was no jealousy or worry. The state of affairs was completely clear. Till death do us part. In the fall they went up to Cape Cod for a long weekend. Stayed at a small hotel with a yellow facade that Hopper had once painted, walked between the lighthouses under the clouds.

  One night they sat in one of the few restaurants that hadn’t yet closed for the season. Ben had downed a couple of martinis before dinner, and they were on their second bottle of red. Ben squinted so it stretched even the corner of his mouth when he poured the last in Grip’s glass.

  “You’re security police,” he said, waving the bottle to the girl at the bar. “Most art is just stuff. Dead things.” He took a big gulp from his glass and cleared his throat. “I appraise art, you know. All kinds of fools want to hear what a man like me thinks.” He rubbed his mouth drunkenly. “Their eyes shine when they find out what it’s worth. Then if you can find some new thing for their walls or their pedestals, they’ll pay anything. It has to cost them, that’s the thing.” He let the knife spin on the tablecloth.

  “Jean Arp,” he said then, “what do you know about Arp?”

  Grip was only half listening to what Ben was saying. “Nothing,” he replied.

  “Sculptures,” said Ben, and raised his hand dismissively. “There are people who”—he paused, drank of the wine—“people who need help.”

  Now Grip knew it would be about money. That was the dark side, the eclipse—until death do us part. They needed money, lots of money, to postpone the prophecies that faced them. Sums that caused them to sit up at night staring at each other. Until the moment nearly twenty years ago when the nurse handed him a slip that said “positive,” Ben had been living like an immortal. He couldn’t afford anything else anyhow: as a freelance art writer, at best money meant paying the rent on time. He knew better, knew damn well he needed to do better, but health insurance, he’d get to that later. Later, later, later, until he sat with that slip in his hand. He tried to fix it, but it turned into a gauntlet of pitying glances. Sooner or later a remark about the disease always came up, and the insurance agent would shoot the application forms a little too far to the side. He had to take out a loan, he had to have care. In those days, the doctors in their white coats offered a lot, but nothing that would help. He arranged creditors, endorsements by others wandering in the same desert. They signed for each other. Almost every one of them was dead now. And then the probates ended the pyramid game against the banks. Ben came to dread phone calls from lawyers more than the notes saying that another emaciated friend had given up the ghost, among addicts and homeless people in some county hospital. While the insurance agents had at least been sympathetic, the faces of the bankers and the lawyers they hired were cold.

  To save himself, falsity became second nature: to throw out mail, to lie under oath, to question the authenticity of his own old signatures. To hunt for medical certificates that said he was dying and therefore not available. Everything was about procrastination. It was a decades-long war of broken promises and betrayed confidences. Everyone and no one was the enemy. Or—the banks and lawyers were the enemy. Always.

  And it had worked, it had just barely worked. These days Grip took care of the most pressing bills, the overdue fees that keep Ben fr
om being sued by his own lawyers. But more than that he could not manage, and Ben needed doctors more than ever. His lungs rattled, and now and then the shortness of breath forced him down on his knees with blue lips. But the doctors who could treat him only took cold cash.

  “. . . people that need a bit of help,” said Ben. “They pay well.” Drinking deep drafts of the wine again, Grip lowered his eyes from the deserted street outside the restaurant.

  “Help?” he said. They had both agreed that Grip would never get mixed up in the paper war over money, that his name or signature would never show up in those battles. There were many reasons for that.

  “Help, with Jean Arp,” said Ben, putting the glass down. “I will certify its authenticity.”

  “The sculptures are fake?”

  “No, everything indicates that they are genuine.”

  “Wait—to certify the authenticity of something authentic, does that pay much?”

  “It depends on the context.” Ben’s eyes grew clearer.

  This was about more than money and perjury. Out of habit, Grip looked over his shoulder. No one was near them.

  “First, they must get their hands on them, the Arp sculptures,” said Ben.

  “Theft,” said Grip, giving it its proper name. He weighed the word like a tool in his hand.

  “A person with a lot of money pays so that someone else, just as wealthy as he, will in turn lose them. In the process, I examine the sculptures and say that they are what they are.”

  “Should make a couple of thousand,” murmured Grip.

  “Usually something like that,” replied Ben with a shrug.

  That’s how it was; Ben earned extra money by appraising stolen goods. And of course it was something Ben never talked about. But now he wanted more. A few thousand dollars at a time, under the circumstances, was like collecting bottle deposits to pay for a space flight. Grip shifted in his chair, uncertain about where they were going. At the same time, he knew that Ben was so drunk he’d drowned any reluctance to say what was on his mind.

  “Now they need help, planning a few details for the next bust.” Ben’s hand seemed to lie on the table, but in fact it hovered a few millimeters above. Apologies already prepared, and a thousand phrases that said “Forget it” as soon as he’d laid out what he needed to. But Grip was sitting perfectly still. He understood. Understood perfectly. The idea was to bring him in next time. With him being part of the planning, they could pay off a lot more bills.

  “A robbery,” Grip said then. Not even a question. Not even a flinch.

  Ben wasn’t sure. “Of the wealthy, they have—”

  Grip struck his palm on the table: “Don’t ask!” The girl behind the bar looked up, but couldn’t hear the rest. Grip stopped a second and then said in a low voice: “I’m not a child and I’m not a toy. If we are something, you and I, then we don’t pretend. We talk about how it is. I know what a robbery is, and I know exactly what’s at stake.”

  Ben’s hand kept hovering. His splayed fingers trembled. Not even three martinis and two bottles of wine could keep away his fear of death.

  They went back to the hotel that Edward Hopper painted. Complete silence between them. Not war, just silence. It was the third and final night in the same room, and what over a weekend had become familiar now seemed completely foreign. Decorations, light, furniture.

  It was five o’clock in the morning when Grip woke Ben up, a hand shaking his shoulder.

  “What have you told them?”

  “Nothing,” replied Ben after a few seconds, coming back to the surface, “only that I know someone.”

  “Security police?”

  “No.” Ben slowly turned around. “I met them, understood that they need people, I said I knew someone.”

  “Is that all?”

  “A Swede, I said. You know, Europeans always arouse interest in those types.”

  “And the connection between us?”

  “They have no idea. I said you could be reached through an intermediary.”

  “But Swedish, you said?”

  “Your accent, you would meet . . . It was hardly a revelation.”

  A car’s headlights shone through the gaps of the blinds. Nothing more was said.

  Back 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.

  CHAPTER 11

  IT 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.

  Less 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 pla
n. 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.