by Jens Lapidus
A mix of B- and C-list celebs were milling about. She eyed the makeup of people: the model Rebecka Simonsson, the writer Björn af Kleen, one of the many Skarsgård brothers, Blondinbella and a dozen other boobie bloggers, the actor Henrik Lundström, and the fashionista Sofi Fahrman paraded past.
Smack in the middle was that cheesy writer who’d been in the tabloids recently for appearing on TV with a spray tan and his shirt unbuttoned to his navel.
Natalie missed Paris. She missed the time before everything’d started happening with her dad.
Louise had Lady Gaga eyes, without even having done a line yet. Did her best to maintain the bored, dead-gaze expression. It was obvious: she didn’t want to show how impressed she was.
The host was standing a bit farther in the room. He was dressed in a pink tux.
Louise pinched Natalie on the arm as discreetly as possible. “D’you see? Over there, that’s Jet Set Carl. Damn, he’s so hot.”
Natalie didn’t bother responding. The host’d obviously seen her. He made his way toward them. A look in his eye that seemed genuine enough. A broad smile that looked gross.
“Natalie, I’m so glad you could make it. How is everything, really?”
“It’s fine. How are you?”
“I’m great. So fantastic to have this done, finally. It took almost a year and a half. But it ended up pretty sweet, right?”
Then he sounded more serious. “But I understand your situation. It must be very scary. That’s why I’m so glad you could come tonight.”
Natalie didn’t know what to say. Her father’d been subjected to an assassination attempt, and here she was, partying. She felt like an idiot.
“It’s fine.” She turned to Louise. “This is my friend, Louise Guldhake.”
Louise’s smile wasn’t a real smile, more of a grimace that she thought looked like a smile. But it seemed to work on Jet Set Carl. He kissed her on the cheek.
“Hi, Louise. Wonderful to see you here. You’re having a good time, I hope?”
Then he leaned over and whispered something in Louise’s ear. Natalie thought, This might be a memorable moment for Louise Guldhake.
Later. She walked out into the foyer, found her shearling coat, smiled at the bouncer, and took the stairs up.
The terrace looked like a forest of metal mushrooms—gas-powered heaters to temper the cool May air. Jet Set Carl didn’t take any risks—a third of the terrace was covered in a party tent filled with infrared heaters. But it was okay out. The guests were crowding in. Enormous speakers were blazoning out Rihanna’s latest hit.
The same ads for Smirnoff everywhere.
She eyed the people. The same mix as downstairs in the apartment. The same meaningless expressions on everyone’s faces. Except for the ones who were too high to conceal their fascination with the celebs.
Natalie glanced down over the railing. The sky was dark blue. Light rose from the city. She glimpsed the dome and spire of the Hedvig Eleonora Church. Farther off, she saw the tower above Saluhallen, the large luxury food market. Dim silhouettes in the spring night. She remembered the conversation she’d had with Dad when he came home from the hospital.
“Natalie, I want to exchange a few words with you,” he’d said. Always that complicated Serbian, even though he knew Natalie preferred to speak Swedish.
They’d gone into the library.
Stefanovic had been sitting at the desk, Goran in one of the armchairs, Milorad in another. All three of them’d been down in the parking garage at the time of the assassination attempt. Dad sat down in his armchair, the one he always sat in. One of his arms was dangling in a sling.
Natalie greeted the men. They kissed her on the cheeks: right, left, right. She knew them all. They’d been part of her family’s inner circle for as long as she could remember. Still, she didn’t know them at all. She got the feeling that they were meeting as adults now. For the first time.
Dad poured out a glass of whiskey.
He let the liquid spin around a few times in the glass before he tasted it.
“Natalie, my daughter, I think it’s important that you take part in some of the conversations we are having in here. Would you like some?”
Natalie looked at him. He was holding the whiskey bottle and a tumbler in his hands. Johnnie Walker Blue Label. It was the first time in her life that he offered her whiskey.
She accepted the glass. Dad poured.
He turned to the others in the room. “This here is my daughter, do you see? She doesn’t turn down a drink. A true Kranjic.”
Stefanovic nodded over in his corner. The men in the room liked her, she could feel it—Dad’s associates. The only people outside the family whom she could trust right now.
Dad began to speak again, “We are at a crossroads.”
Natalie took a sip of whiskey. It burned pleasantly in her throat.
“I want you to be here, to understand what is happening. The demolition firm, the alcohol and cigarette importing business, the gambling machines, the coat checks—you know what I do, Natalie. We do some other business too. But we don’t have to talk about that right now.”
He swirled the whiskey in his glass again.
Natalie was aware of more things than what Dad was mentioning now. His business sprawled in all directions. A lot of what he did wasn’t considered kosher by people like Louise—but that was the immigrant’s lot in life. And was it really that much better to make your money as a venture capitalist who slaughtered companies and fired workers, then created smart solutions so that you didn’t pay a cent in taxes, like Louise’s dad did?
Radovan’d come far, considering that he’d started out as a twenty-year-old at the Scania factories in Södertälje. He’d worked himself up from nothing, against all odds. Most of the businesses he ran today weren’t illegal, but he would still always be considered a criminal in the eyes of Swedish society. So the Svens could go fuck themselves—if you never gave someone a chance to do honest work, you had to accept that that person sometimes played outside the rules. The land of the Sweden Democrats was only going to get worse.
“Stockholm has been our unthreatened market for many years,” Dad continued. “We’ve faced challenges, of course. Kum Jokso was killed. Mrado Slovovic tried to trick us. Those fuckers who blew shit up out at Smådalarö wanted to break us once again. But, and you know this, no one breaks a Kranjic. Right, Natalie?”
Natalie imitated Dad, spun the whiskey around in her glass. Smiled.
“And now someone tried to rub me out in a fucking parking garage. This is a new time we’re living in. We’ve been following this development for a few years. More and more players want a piece of the pie. You know who I’m talking about: HA, Bandidos, Original Gangsters, the Syrians, the Albanians—they’ve been around for a long time. But they’ve done their business, and we’ve done ours. And really, it’s only HA who’ve been playing in our league. But the newbies: the Gambians, Dark Snakes, Born to Be Hated—I mean, it’s like the damn Jungle Book. Before, people used to accept us, knew it was best for everyone not to attack us. But these new little monkeys haven’t understood that we’ve had a stabilizing effect on Stockholm’s gray zones. They lack history, they haven’t understood that everyone appreciates order, even the cops. HA, Bandidos, and the older factions make good money in their own fields. The higher-ups in the hierarchy hire illegal workers and manufacture invoice frauds in the construction industry. The ones lower down on the rungs do their racketeering and dope. But all the new tadpoles want is chaos, as long as they’re kings of their own fucking ghettos. So maybe there are some people who think they’ve got something to gain by getting rid of me.”
He took a deep breath.
“But—the guy in the parking garage was no amateur, that’s for sure. So you can rule out some of those greenhorns right away—they only deal with unorganized crime. Someone is making a serious attempt to get rid of me. I don’t know who it is, but it means that someone is trying to get rid of all of us.�
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Natalie listened. She agreed with her father. Someone was trying to get rid of him, that much was clear. And this someone hadn’t just started a war against Dad. It was a war against her entire family and everyone sitting in the study right now. That could not be tolerated. It was humiliation.
She regarded the men in the room.
Dad was wearing a cuffed shirt and chinos. He looked grave.
Stefanovic was nicely dressed. Well-ironed, striped shirt with French cuffs and silver cufflinks that had GUCCI written on them. He wore his hair in a sharp side part, had well-trimmed stubble, and a tight silver bracelet around one wrist. Stefanovic was the only one who cared about his appearance like that.
Goran was wearing a black tracksuit, as usual. Always Adidas. Worn-looking running shoes, Nike Air—all the time. Funny to think that Goran, the most untrendy Serb in northern Europe, had purchased a pair of retro-hip shoes. Or else he’d just worn the same shoes since 1987—actually, that was not entirely impossible.
Milorad rocked jeans and a polo shirt—a pink Lacoste. He was tan and looked really fit too. Saint-Tropez here I come, or whatever. Milorad tried to look young, but in Natalie’s world, he’d been around for as long as Dad had.
She wondered who these men really were. If they would protect Dad. If they were capable.
And then a final thought shot through her mind. A thought that burned: Could they really be trusted?
Dad kept talking about new ways of working. About diversifying the business more. Switching their routines. Not repeating the same methods too many times. Recruiting new staff, increasing security checks, cleaning up among those who were not doing a good job.
The men were sitting in silence. Listening. Interjected something now and then.
Constantly on their faces: respect.
Then she looked at Stefanovic. She glanced again. She was certain: his eyes were gleaming.
Louise was chatting with some guy with a pink handkerchief in his breast pocket and a watch on his wrist that looked like Viktor’s.
Natalie’d called Dad to pick her up.
She’d talked to Louise, with some other girls she usually met out at clubs, had exchanged a few words with Jet Set Carl again, nonsense-talked with someone named Nippe, grinned at a six-foot dude who was high like Burj Al Arab and pronounced the word turquoise in an incredibly funny way. There was nothing wrong with the night per se, but she wanted to go home now.
Dad called. Said he was parked down on the street. She could come down.
She took the elevator.
The entranceway to the building was Östermalm-style on steroids: old-fashioned moldings and Nordic frescos decorated the ceiling. A real Oriental rug on the floor as a welcome mat. Through the glass-paned doors she could see a dark blue BMW parked out on the street. It was Dad’s car.
She walked out.
The BMW was parked twenty or so yards farther down the street.
Someone strolled past the car. Disappeared around the corner onto Storgatan.
She couldn’t see who was sitting in the car.
One of the windows was rolled down a few inches.
She heard a voice. “It’s me.”
A hand waved. Dad was calling to her.
Natalie walked toward the car. Saw Dad in the driver’s seat.
He started the engine.
Ten yards left.
Then: a sound. Something exploding.
Natalie’s body was thrown back, up into the air.
She didn’t understand anything.
She heard a monotone sound.
A ringing in her ears that wouldn’t stop.
The BMW.
She tried to get up. She was on all fours.
Smoke was billowing out from the car.
13
Outside, rain. A low, spattering sound. As if there was a tap running somewhere in the house.
J-boy was peering outside. Massive trees. Bushes. Long leaves of grass. A little cottage that Jimmy called a tool shed. Three parked cars.
The drip-drop sound kept steadily on.
Spring was slow going this year.
He looked up. Beams in the ceiling. Looked weird: why build a house without finished ceilings? Had to be a Sven thing. But at least they were dry. So that’s not where the dripping sound was coming from.
He looked farther. Wallpaper with a faggy pattern: blue and pink flowers. Wood-colored bookcases, thin curtains, a fat moose horn over one of the doors. A bouquet of dried flowers above the other door. On the floor: a rug, a basket with firewood, electrical heaters that made ticking sounds.
The place was way out in the boondocks: they’d driven there on a winding road. All around: farmhouses, barns, and worn-down tractors parked in sheds that looked like they were about to cave in. Outside Strängnäs, or “inland,” as Jimmy put it.
The house: a so-called vacation home. One of those little red houses with a chimney that every single Sven seemed to own.
But why would you want one, anyway? Poor insulation, no dishwasher, no finished ceilings. Shit, they didn’t even have a DVD player or an Internet hookup out here. Jorge didn’t get what the deal was with this house.
Flashing thoughts. Images. He thought about the car chase in Sollentuna.
The tires’d screeched. The seat belt’d dug into his shoulder. The cell phone that’d been nestled behind the gearshift’d flown around the car like in a pinball machine.
He’d turned into one of the streets in the residential area. Drove like a maniac as soon as they were out of the cop’s sight. Roared at Mahmud to turn around.
“Do you see them? Do you see them?”
Mahmud didn’t see them. The cops didn’t seem to have turned onto the same street. Jorge slammed the brakes. Tore up the duffel bag with the gat. Threw open the door. Jumped out of the car. Looked over his shoulder. Black licorice marks all over the pavement behind the car. Fuck. But no cop car, not that he could see anyway.
To Mahmud, “Take my seat. Drive outa here. I’ll catch you later.”
Jorge sprinted—like a rerun of his break from the Österåker Pen. Over a hedge. Onto someone’s lawn. Over a sandbox. He panted. Breathed. Rushed.
Away, away from the street. Away with the piece.
Into the residential area.
Into the protected world of the one-family homes.
He sprinted faster than Usain Bolt over the gardens, away toward downtown Sollentuna.
He looked around. Ran down to the train station. Jumped onto a train.
He talked to Mahmud later. After a minute or so, a cruiser’d appeared from a different direction and stopped the Arab. The cops hadn’t found much. A cell phone charger, a hoodie that belonged to Babak, and a pack of cigarettes. But no weapons. They said they’d seen Jorge in the car, but who the fuck cared. They couldn’t prove that they’d driven like lunatics in the residential area. Clean.
Still: an embarrassing story.
Jorge told Mahmud not to say anything to Babak.
Back in the cottage. Jorge turned around. Behind him: two tripods. A whiteboard. A projection screen.
That drip-drip sound again. There must be a leak somewhere.
In front of him: seven soldiers.
Mahmud was sitting closest to him, on a wooden chair. Dressed in a tracksuit, as usual. The Adidas stripes were like gang colors for him. Bags under his eyes—he and Jorge’d been up half the night.
On the couch: Sergio, Robert, and Javier. They looked interested. Talked among themselves. Big gooey pile of cozy.
Jimmy was sitting in the other armchair. Hunched down low, naturally calm.
Tom and Viktor were sitting on the two plastic sun chairs from the garden. The Viktor dude looked jumpy. Tom was in a good mood—pulled joke after joke: so old he must’ve heard them on a radio. “What do you see when you a look a blonde in the eye—the inside of the back of her head.”
Still, the jokes lightened the mood.
Jorge took note: the group was gathered.<
br />
And now: the first general assembly was coming to order—so boner-inducing, it made his cock hurt.
They’d borrowed the cottage from Jimmy’s mom. Apparently the dude’d sat off his entire summer vacations here as a kid. Jorge thought: What the fuck’d he done all summer? There was nothing here. And the only weed around was what the cows chewed.
Still, Jimmy said he’d been livin’ la vida, said he had it all out here. “It’s only a couple hundred yards to the beach, you know.”
Jorge recalled his own summers as a kid. Mom’d packed a blanket and a plastic bottle with Kool-Aid. Picnic in the park behind the Sollentuna Mall. Mom, Paola. And the asshole he wanted to wipe from his memory: Rodriguez.
“Tierra virgen,” Mom said. As if a couple-hundred-square-foot park were a nature reserve.
In his head, Jorge ran through what’d been taken care of already. One of the Finn’s main principles: no written lists—could become lethal evidence for the cops after the fact. But J-boy had a good memory. This stuff filled his head during the days.
Last week: Tom Lehtimäki’d gotten eight shiny new phones from two different stores, through some boozehound. Chosen stores that didn’t have camera surveillance. Tom slipped the drunk five hundred kronor and a handle of whiskey for his trouble.
What’s more: Tom’d gotten walkie-talkies. Maybe they’d need gear that couldn’t be tracked through the telephone networks. Tom pulled the same trick: asked some drunk to shell out so that no one saw him touch the equipment. Tossed the receipts into a storm drain.
The other guys: been rocking out on a swiping spree. Buckets, crowbars, axes, gas cans, screwdrivers, trestles, spray adhesive, and other shit they were gonna need.
Jorge bought thirty rolls of aluminum foil at the grocery store in the Sollentuna Mall. The cashier asked if he was gonna wallpaper with foil. She didn’t know how right she was.