The Swede: A Novel

by Robert Karjel

  “Stackhouse,” said Shauna, “is busy making a smokescreen, suggesting that N. could have come from anywhere. His being Swedish didn’t fit into the picture, not for Stackhouse. Everything around N. is disappearing, there’s nothing I can get to.”

  “Does it matter?” said Grip. “We have no interest in resurrecting him, not in this way. For us, he was already dead.”

  “But he was tortured . . .”

  “Thoroughly and long.”

  “The CIA regrets it, claiming that others were at fault. That in other countries, things got out of control.”

  “You mean that’s what they tell you, when you have to investigate the matter?”

  “Something like that.” Shauna was silent, moved some debris on the floor with the tip of her shoe. Then she asked, “Did Americans torture him?”

  “You want to know what I think?”

  “What you know.”

  Grip looked at the clock.

  Shauna continued: “Don’t we have a common interest in solving this kind of puzzle?” She waited a moment. “Do you like names? We can play names. One that turns up occasionally is Maureen Whipple.”

  “Is that so.”

  “Yes, she has been seen where she shouldn’t be.” Shauna gave a quick nod. “Do you know anything about her?”

  “Not much.”

  “Not much—still, that’s a start. During your weeks with N., of course you learned more than what we overheard. You found a way to talk to him.”

  “Hey, time to go,” shouted the crewman in the aisle. Shauna raised a sympathetic hand but remained seated.

  “Stackhouse,” she continued, “wanted to keep you here. As of yesterday, he became quite forceful about it. That’s why I’m sending you off. The heat’s on Garcia, it fuels all kinds of desperation. Stackhouse’s world teems with terrorists, and he’s willing to go quite far to keep his machinery operating.” She let it sink in for a second. “I received a report from Washington yesterday concerning Maureen Whipple. For Christ’s sake, if you know anything about her . . . You get to leave, but I have to have something, to hold off Stackhouse.”

  “Maureen . . . ,” began Grip.

  “Now you damn well . . . ,” cried the crewman to Shauna.

  “One second.”

  There was a roar as an engine started up.

  “Maureen Whipple,” Grip began again, “is one of N.’s torturers.”

  “He was able to identify her?”

  Grip nodded. “The shit is yours to dig in. She belongs to you. Clearly, it’s her assignment to drown people or let them be raped by dogs.”

  “Not is—perhaps was—her assignment. She was found murdered yesterday morning, in the woods outside her home, somewhere in West Virginia.” Shauna pushed a finger into her own chest. “Someone drove a stake straight through her. Like a vampire. Fat headlines, a thousand questions.”

  Grip couldn’t bring himself to give more than a surprised nod.

  “Now means now, we’re closing,” roared a face sticking through the doorway at the front of the cabin.

  Shauna stood up.

  “Had N. himself had the chance to do it,” said Grip then, “he wouldn’t have hesitated for a second.”

  “Someone obviously took his chance for him. The stake was pierced through a piece of paper quoting the White House’s assurances that torture does not occur”—Shauna looked toward the door and added absently—“in the war on terror.” She nodded, to herself, making a decision. “Yes,” she said then, “N. is dead. I only wish that you and I had had the chance to sit down and talk about the others as well.”

  “About Adderloy and Mary?”

  “About them and Vladislav. Especially Vladislav.” Then she left, didn’t look back once as she disappeared down the aisle and out the door.

  The plane rocked, began to taxi. Eventually, they came to the end of the runway, turned around. Sat there. The waiting that followed was excruciating. To get away from the island—Grip could have pushed the airplane himself.

  Then came the engines powering up, and the brakes released.

  CHAPTER 35

  UP AT ALTITUDE, THE PEACEFULNESS of the evening sun made his eyelids heavy. Still, Grip couldn’t fall asleep.

  The stake. It wasn’t the mental image of the woman in the woods that disturbed him, but the thought of what he’d unleashed. Vladislav—after only a few days, he’d already done the job. It was like an incantation, a demon. Why did Grip feel drawn to him? As if an aching nerve had been exposed.

  Grip squirmed in his seat, tried to close his eyes. No luck, squirmed again. The setting sun shimmered like melting glass over the horizon. He pulled out Shauna’s pile of tickets and documents, began leafing through them to give himself something to do. Among the papers, he found an unmarked envelope. The flap wasn’t licked, just tucked in. Inside the envelope was a pair of double-folded, blurry photocopies. Grip unfolded them.

  Transcript of Hearing. Tape: 1 (2), K921314

  Date: April 21, 2008

  Location: Nassau County Correctional Center, East Meadow, New York

  Appearing:

  Examining Officer Shauna Friedman (SF), FBI

  Defendant Romeo Lupone (RL), detained on suspicion of complicity to commit forgery

  RL: Why this time? You never needed to record us before.

  SF: All our previous little dates can remain a matter between you and me. But now we have an agreement, what you say must be official, and so it has to be on tape.

  RL: For fuck’s sake, people will say I snitch.

  SF: Call it whatever you want, this is the deal, if you want to walk out of here a free man.

  RL: When do I get out? Today?

  SF: Give me something to convince the prosecutor that you are worth his time, that you actually have something to offer. Then we’ll see. Withdrawal of prosecution is no trifle, there are many people involved. Two or three weeks, I would think, before a judge will let you go free on bail.

  RL: Three weeks in this fucking hole.

  SF: That’s the game. Do you want to play or not?

  RL: Go to hell.

  SF: I didn’t hear you. Try again.

  [Silence.]

  SF: This won’t take long, we’ll start with this.

  RL: That’s a fucking passport photo, right?

  SF: Yes, it is.

  RL: I’ve said that I can tell you how it happened, how they did it . . .

  SF: How you did it.

  RL: Yeah, how we did it, then. Both the sculptures and the thing in Central Park. But no names. If anyone finds out . . .

  SF: We don’t give a damn. And right now, we don’t care how you did it either. We need names!

  [Silence.]

  SF: Look at the picture. You’ve talked about “the Swede,” that the one who did the planning was called the Swede. Is that him?

  RL: Maybe.

  SF: Maybe?

  RL: Shit, that was years ago now. A single fucking picture.

  SF: Maybe isn’t good enough. You’re having trouble understanding? Right now, I see a prosecutor turning his back on you when he hears this. I see a driver from Brooklyn in his freezing cell in upstate New York.

  [Silence.]

  SF: A hell of a lot of years in Sing Sing.

  [Silence.]

  SF: I see that things are sinking in. That you’re getting it.

  RL: That’s him. I think it’s him.

  SF: Oh no, it’s not that easy, just saying you think it’s him. You have to be certain.

  RL: Please, I need . . . give me. Give me better pictures.

  SF: Let’s leave the Swede. We’ll go on to this one instead. Him, I have more photos of. Take a look!

  [Silence.]

  SF: Look at all the photos. You can’t miss this one, if you’ve seen him. Really try to concentrate now.

  RL: Bill.

  SF: Bill, yes, but many people are named Bill.

  RL: Adderloy, Bill Adderloy.

  SF: So he was with you, Ad
derloy was with you?

  RL: No. [Clears throat.] Adderloy wasn’t with us, it was Adderloy we worked for. I was there when he inspected the goods afterward in a warehouse, both times, both statues and the fucking thing from Central Park.

  SF: Bill Adderloy?

  RL: Yes.

  SF: Now that’s more like it. Maybe it won’t be that cell in Sing Sing, after all.

  RL: Do I have to testify? I mean, testify in front of people?

  SF: One thing at a time. If you can identify Adderloy, you will go free on bail, I’ll see to that. But the judge won’t let you off completely until you’ve given your final word about the Swede. I will get hold of better photos, and in the meantime, you make sure to put your memories in order. Then if you’re lucky, you can avoid both the cell and the witness stand.

  Grip sat still. Completely still with the pages in his hand, maybe a minute. Maybe ten.

  Had . . .

  Below him passed the Indian Ocean, or perhaps they were already over the Pacific. It was night in any case; he had one night to shield him. Before him lay the ticket that would take him all the way home, and with it, a blurry transcript. Grip dismissed the idea that he had a choice—the easy world would last only as long as his flight. One night, then the wheels would touch the ground again.

  Had . . . ?

  The hearing transcript left him with both clarity and fog. Why had Shauna Friedman done him the favor of tying N. to New York? It didn’t fit, not with Topeka and the quintet from Weejay’s—all it did was give Grip a chance. Just like with Romeo Lupone, who’d do anything to avoid a few decades behind the limestone of Sing Sing for accessory to murder. Grip had been picking around in Shauna’s puzzle before, but it was only now that he saw all the pieces. The way it truly was. In Kansas, Reza had babbled on about Adderloy and “the Swede” in his cell. Shauna had already trailed Adderloy for art theft and collaborating with terrorists, and then she got hold of N., who had Grip’s passport in his pocket. A passport with too many entrance stamps for New York. And sure enough, someone busts a petty thief in Brooklyn who snitches when it gets too hot. Once again a lot of vague talk about “the Swede.” Conveniently enough, N. was the one who could be blamed for everyone’s sins. N. as bank robber in Topeka, and then as art thief in New York. Shauna trimmed the edges to make it fit: Adderloy, the art theft, the crazy orgy in Topeka. She assumed that N. and Adderloy went way back. This made things easier, the idea that they’d worked together at least since the theft of the Arp sculptures. That came first, then Topeka and finally Central Park. Among all the marionettes, N. was the lead puppet, the common link. Of course, you wanted to believe that. Anything would do.

  But what about reality then? The reality was Adderloy. Bill Adderloy made money off Baptists and Methodists, who wanted to Christianize and poke in all the world’s abscesses—and with that money he bought and stole art. For fuck’s sake. Had . . . had Grip then worked for Adderloy? The thought made a steel band tighten around his heart. It was chance, had to be chance. He twisted and turned every circumstance. So much had been going on in his head as he stood in that workshop in Brooklyn, when he looked over the plans, rewrote them. Among the maps of the robbers, the prospective art thieves. The same went for the hit in Central Park. Who cared about the unknown client? Grip had just made sure that nothing linked him to the one ultimately behind it all. At both jobs, Ben had been the only link. That’s how it was. Conspiracy was an impossibility, a twisted tale. Grip didn’t doubt it for a moment.

  Chance, he had to find a way to accept it. Shauna had even said so herself. Adderloy had sought out the forbidden long before the tsunami. And Grip had been sucked right in. But it was chance, and now he had to free himself from it. For one night, he could keep it at bay, as long as there was air under the wings. The robbery in Topeka, and N. in his cell. It was like he was held by a thin, thin wire that could pull him back to Garcia any time. And there was another wire in his chest, reeling him toward the American continent at five hundred miles per hour. Toward Central Park and Romeo Lupone.

  The hearing transcript disappeared into the envelope. A crew cut in a suit who’d just been to the bathroom passed by. Their eyes met, and Grip felt it, the thin wire pulling him back to Garcia. Shauna Friedman, she wouldn’t simply release him outright. He knew that, he did, but now he thought it through: even if she didn’t have people on the airplane, she’d no doubt have him followed as soon as he set foot in the States.

  Shauna Friedman’s intimacy, the drinks, the day at the beach. Beauty always weakens you, inevitably, no matter what your orientation. If there’s ever a thought of caressing what her kind radiates, if only to touch the soap bubble and see if it lasts, then other things fall away. Then you let down your guard. You start to underestimate, and you guess wrong. Grip knew all about that. Everything. And yet. He was a primitive animal, his responses all too ingrained.

  The Pacific, all black. Still a few hours left.

  Shauna Friedman had shown the passport to Lupone. Grip’s passport, Grip’s picture. Grip had noted the date of the hearing: April 21. It was just over three weeks ago, or exactly three days before Grip was called by the Boss in Stockholm and handed his tickets. Lupone had hesitated, and Shauna had decided to put Grip and N. in the same room. Which was which? Lupone was still uncertain, and three weeks later, still no decision had been made. Suddenly, Grip was the only one left.

  And now what?

  Now Shauna Friedman wasn’t just trying to keep an eye on him. The envelope, the copy of the hearing with Lupone—it was a call to action.

  CHAPTER 36

  IN SAN DIEGO, GRIP WAS picked up by a bleary-eyed driver, after his plane landed in the dawn mist on North Island.

  “Welcome, Ernest Grip!” The mistake was repeated at the hotel reception in Coronado. Shauna’s stack of prepaid reservations was getting used up, one by one. Grip’s next flight wouldn’t leave until after lunch, so he went up to the room and slept for an hour, then took a walk.

  Getting onto the Internet was easy enough. At a café with huge windows, he paid a few extra dollars to log on to the flat-screen monitor at a bar overlooking the sea. Two short e-mails. First to the Boss, saying he’d be on his way home soon. No dates, just that. For a while, he considered how to word the second one. Drank his coffee, looked out over the sea, and decided to be blunt.

  He wrote: “What about Adderloy?”

  He left it that way, and looked out to sea again. Sunny, no wind, but the breaking waves roared even inside the café. A few surfers, mostly lounging around on their boards. They lay there for a while, swaying, like lethargic seals. But when a big wave rolled in, like a flock of birds on a sudden whim, they all began to paddle—and then rose to a crouch. They shot out fast, the white surf breaking over them from the towering wave behind. It lasted only a few seconds, then nearly all of them fell headfirst. Only one managed the turns at the top of the crest and back. As the foam from the dying wave formed a white mat around him, he threw a lazy glance over his shoulder and dove in.

  When the surfer’s head rose to the surface, Grip looked down at the computer again, read: “What about Adderloy?” He clicked send.

  The e-mail went out to Vladislav.

  At the hotel, Grip began to repack his bags; he would only take a carry-on. All the dirty laundry he’d amassed now filled the large suitcase, along with one of his two suits—it couldn’t be helped. He took the elevator down and walked out the back of the building. Near Deliveries, he found a Dumpster and hoisted his bag over with a crash into the garbage. Then he went back to his room, showered and changed.

  A new car with a driver showed up at the appointed time. The dry concrete whined under the tires, and they shot like a plane at takeoff over Coronado Bay Bridge, with views of the aircraft carriers in the harbor and the bay in all its glory. It took a full hour, crossing the city, to get to San Diego International.

  “Only one carry-on.” The woman with glittering gold nails and raven hair nodded. “Through
to New York via Atlanta, checked into business class with window seats on both routes.”

  Grip took the two boarding cards from her hand.

  In business, the flight attendant was obviously gay, had a nice tan, and served pepper steak. Grip stopped him and mentioned extra wine. He also had his second radar on—going back and forth to the bathroom, he instinctively looked for eyes keeping track of him for Shauna. But he found no obvious feds. Maybe they’d just lie low, be content to watch him once he checked into the hotel in New York? Maybe not.

  Then his thoughts slipped away to other things. What about Adderloy? And so Grip went back there, thought about Vladislav. Examined his own mental picture of him. The long, swept-back hair, the big outlandish glasses. The bus that was drowned in the tsunami, the guard on the floor of the bank in Topeka, everything that N. described. How he always got away. Even that stake in West Virginia—Vladislav would get away with it. Napoleon always stayed close to his generals who’d survived the most battles. Some are born with that kind of luck. Or that kind of instinct.

  Grip chewed ice from his empty cup and looked at the flight attendant. He was reminded of nights and clubs a long time ago. Of something unrestrained and raw.

  He stopped for a moment at the monitors when he got off the flight in Atlanta. Barely a half-hour layover, people streaming past him from every direction. On his way to the new gate, Grip went to an ATM and maxed out the card, putting the bankroll in his inside pocket. Among the seats where they waited for the New York flight were faces that had become vaguely familiar since the pepper steak. Grip found a spot and sat down; at the counter, someone got agitated over a booking error. The general atmosphere was impatient, newspapers and bags rustling. Then the flight was announced, and people immediately lined up.

  Boarding cards got fed into the machine for Delta Airlines’ evening flight to New York, and people walked onboard. With maybe five to go before Grip, he leaned forward to a flight agent behind the counter with a phone to her ear. “Restrooms?” he asked.

  She pointed lazily.

  He broke from the line.