by Jens Lapidus
She woke up at six every morning. Went to bed past one every night. Drank eight cups of coffee every day, plus at least three cans of Red Bull, munched on valerian at night in order to sleep. She ate hard-boiled eggs and tomatoes. Lost weight. Told Viktor to stay away. She would call him “when I feel okay.”
She chatted with the girls sporadically on Facebook. Wrote to Louise that she was feeling too low to go out.
Mischa Bladman played unaffected. He agreed to sit down with Natalie in order to help her gain a general understanding of Dad’s company finances. Six of the companies’d folded. A few were dormant. Four remained. Kranjic Holding AB, the Demolition Experts in Nälsta AB, Clara’s Kitchen & Bar, Teck Toe AB. Dad’d controlled a number of companies without being listed as the official owner—Bladman was obviously nervous, didn’t want to discuss ownership shares right now. Didn’t know what ass cheek to sit on. Mischa Bladman never said it, but Natalie understood—he’d been taking instructions from Stefanovic up until this point.
She ordered a close-fitting bulletproof vest. Goran provided her with gorillas to always have in tow: Adam and Sascha. Some nights she slept at hotels. They checked under her car, they always positioned her farthest from the window, they never let her be the first to enter anywhere. She studied the police investigation for the twentieth time. There had to be something there. She considered telling the police that she knew where the weapons’d come from. She sat through meetings with her lawyer and another tax lawyer. She drove to the Frihamnen harbor and checked out the dock and how the tankers from Tallinn arrived—maybe bags of amphetamine could be tossed from the boats? She drank six Coca-Colas a day, ate ginseng tablets every morning, and munched on painkillers to reduce the headache that took hold at five o’clock every afternoon.
One day Goran called. “He wants to see you again,” he said.
“Good.”
“Natalie, just take it easy.”
They met four hours later. Same restaurant, Teatergrillen. Same red upholstery. Same lit candles. Same privacy.
Adam, her bodyguard, had to stay in the car.
JW was dressed in a dark gray suit and a green tie.
He got right to the heart of it: “This isn’t good.”
Natalie assumed he was referring to the situation between her and Stefanovic.
“Bladman is feeling pressured,” he said.
“Let me do my business, and then you and Bladman can do yours,” she said. “And the last time I saw you, you weren’t too keen on cooperating.”
“We cooperate with whoever it suits us to cooperate with. I have many clients. Your father was one of them. Now Stefanovic is one of them.”
Natalie didn’t plan on folding. She had to do what she had to do. At the same time, she needed JW’s help. It was he and Bladman who’d helped Dad with everything that Stefanovic was now trying to take over. And he was involved in the Cherkasova-Svelander story.
“Give me a reason why I shouldn’t take back what’s mine,” she said.
His eyes glittered. Maybe that was a weak smile at the corner of his mouth. “The right of ownership is the most important right we have. Trust me, I fight for it. But you also have to understand the reality of this situation. I can’t decide between clients.”
“You can have your principles, and I’ll have mine. I’m going to take back what’s mine. You and Bladman’ll have to pick sides, that’s all there is to it.”
“We’re not going to do that. But let me say this. You want something from me. I want several things from you. I think we’re going to be able to solve this. Just give me some time.”
He was different. Swedish—yet still the same talk and calm as in Dad’s men. Playboy look—but despite that he played in the same world as she did. He’d done time—but he still ordered wine with the same style as Dad used to do. He was playing several different games at once. Just like her, maybe.
And the entire time: that glitter in his eyes. She’d never met anyone like him.
At night, she texted Viktor and asked him to come over. Mom was at yoga. They ordered pizzas that he picked up on the way over. Natalie cut off the crusts and ate—the LCHF diet’d been discarded for now.
Viktor wondered what was going on. Why she never wanted to get together. Why people said they’d seen her downtown with some other guy. Natalie tried to explain—the situation was bad again. It wasn’t the same guy she was walking around with. It was different bodyguards.
Viktor kept whining. Natalie didn’t want to talk more about it. Said, “Let’s go into the den instead.”
She turned the TV on and settled into the couch with her feet propped up on the coffee table. Viktor lay down beside her. A workplace reality series was playing on TV. You followed the lawyers at a criminal defense office in Stockholm.
Natalie put her arm on Viktor’s thigh. “Want to move this into my bedroom?”
That was one way of putting it.
“Dammit Natalie, we haven’t seen each other in over a week, we’ve hardly spoken, and now you want to fuck, just like that?”
“Stop.”
He smiled. “I like you.”
“Ditto,” she said.
Still, he didn’t do anything. Just sat there. Staring at the TV. A lawyer was babbling about how innocent his client was because the cocaine that’d been found was cut with lidocaine.
“Come on.”
Viktor made a lame move to bend closer to her. He wasn’t in the mood, that much was obvious. But Natalie didn’t want to wait for him to get horned up. She unbuttoned his fly. He was wearing Polo Ralph Lauren boxers. She pulled out his slack cock. Massaged it.
Viktor slipped down low in the couch. She continued to caress him. He really didn’t want to right now.
But that wasn’t her problem. She ran her hand over his eyes, made him close them. She slipped down his foreskin. Licked the tip.
He made sounds. That was a good sign.
His cock hardened to midsize. She took it in her mouth. It tasted of shower gel and sweat.
He mumbled, “Shouldn’t we go to your room?”
She ignored him. Continued sucking until he got fully erect.
She unbuttoned her own pants. Climbed on top of him.
“Not here,” he said.
She ignored him, moved him inside her.
She supported her arms against his chest. Pressed away with her arms. Moved up and down and to the sides. Felt him inside her.
She closed her eyes. Her thoughts were rushing. She moved faster.
They were going to go to the Black & White Inn tomorrow to have a talk with the rats who’d sold the weapons that’d been used on Dad. It was time for the truth to come out.
Viktor was half-lying on the couch. Natalie continued to fuck him—faster and harder movements. She heard her own breathing.
Viktor was silent. She didn’t give a shit about him.
She moved his hands up to her hips. Felt him grab hold of her. She pressed down as far as she could. His cock reached as deep as it would go.
She was close now.
Wiggled her butt. Pressed herself forward.
Up and down.
She saw masks and harlequins.
She saw a face on the inside of her eyelids.
Up and down.
She saw red drapes and flickering candles.
She saw the face again.
It was JW.
She saw JW.
43
Jorge: stressed like a drug mule with a full stomach.
Nervous like a babyface on his first day of school.
Wiggin’ like a CIT robber on the lam. Which was exactly what he was.
Jorge’s world: had come crashing down. Again. Mahmud was still in the hospital. The Thai fuckers who wanted to sell wanted all the cash at once. Babak was threatening to snitch like a bitch.
Life was shitting on Jorge. Life was sucking horse cock. Life was more unfair than a Swedish court’s way of convicting addicts. He was tired. Rap-life remade
as crap-life. G-life transformed into L-life. L as in loser.
Jorge’s anxious thoughts were on repeat: maybe he should turn himself in. Call the cops and demand that they take him. Check into an arrest cell for a few months. Install himself behind bars again. Be interrogated around the clock. Be humiliated by fake-friendly cops who would try to get him to wrap his bros.
No.
NO.
He was J-boy. The king. He would handle this. They could count to nine—he would always get backup.
Plus: there was some light in the darkness. That Hägerström dude was being useful, even though he was an ex-cop. According to JW, police records showed that he was a bad boy, had fallen hard. No wonder he got booted from the pigsty.
Jorge was gonna buy a place in Phuket. Mahmud and Javier were waiting. And Tom and Jimmy would also need him sooner or later. He wouldn’t let them down.
Now, today: the effect of too much shit—Jorge on the escalator on the way toward baggage claim at Arlanda Airport. No other way out: on his way home to Stockholm either to help the Iranian somehow or to dig up the cash and bring it back to Phuket. The alternatives were his for the picking. But he had to go home.
He’d made it through border control with his fake passport. Now: just customs left. This couldn’t go wrong. He couldn’t fuck this up.
On the walls: large photos of Stockholmers. Benny Andersson, Björn Borg, the King. And then the owner of a kebab stand. The latter: completely unknown hombre. WELCOME TO MY HOMETOWN, it said. Jorge thought: The kebab nigga isn’t even Swedish, how can he welcome anyone?
Then: Wrong thinking—the kebab guy is just as Swedish as me. And I don’t have anything else—this is my hometown, my home. I belong here.
His thoughts were interrupted. Someone rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Hi. Were we on the same plane?”
Jorge turned around. He recognized the hazel eyes immediately.
The girl with dreadlocks that he’d borrowed the phone from in the bar in Pattaya. She smiled.
“Yes, probably,” Jorge said. “But I had to ride with the luggage.”
She laughed. She had a nice mouth. “Well, shouldn’t you be coming out on this baggage carousel then?”
“Yeah, but I crawled out and hid in your dreads. You didn’t notice?”
They laughed together.
The girl asked where he’d been traveling over the past few weeks. Jorge told her the truth, that he’d been in Phuket. It sounded like she’d been around half the globe. Trekked in the jungle in Malaysia, visited orangutans in Indonesia, shopped electronics in Singapore, smoked weed in Vietnam.
She had a ring in her nose and was wearing a worn white T-shirt and hippie tie-dye pants. Jorge did some wishful thinking: if the customs guys didn’t stop her to check for smokes, then there was no way they were gonna stop anyone on this flight.
They kept talking. The bags rolled out on the carousel. Jorge’s arrived first. He picked it up. Set it down on the floor. Walked over to the girl, was just about to say goodbye. Then he stopped. Thought: I’ll wait for her instead.
She noticed that he was waiting. Glanced at him. Smiled faintly. Asked if he had more bags.
Her bag arrived after another minute or so.
They walked together out toward the customs control area.
The girl asked where he was going in Stockholm. What he was doing. When he was going to get back on the road again. He felt worry pounding through his body. His stomach hurt. Vomit urges were pushing up his throat. He stared straight ahead. Saw the customs guys standing around, talking, fifty yards farther up. He tried to respond to the girl’s questions.
He saw a dog, a German shepherd.
He saw it sniff at the bags that passed through customs.
He felt his own pulse pound faster than Little Jorge’s baby heart.
He wasn’t carrying any drugs. But the dog meant the customs guys were on their guard. That they were ready to pluck passersby for control. And a control would mean another scrutiny of his passport. He didn’t think he was listed as wanted—if he were, it should’ve been noted in the documents that he’d gotten from JW through Hägerström. But they’d picked up Babak now—the situation could’ve changed.
They approached.
The sweat on his palms almost made him lose the grip on his suitcase.
The girl babbled on.
They walked toward the entrance to the customs area.
Nothing to declare.
He met the eyes of one of the customs agents. The guy’s eyes bored straight into his.
But no reaction.
Jorge passed. The dog didn’t even bother sniffing his bag.
They emerged on the other side.
A few Thai families and fat cabbies holding signs with names scribbled on them.
He was on Swedish soil again.
There was a God.
One day later. He was sitting at Paola’s house. Örnsberg. Fall colors on the trees outside.
Little Jorge was crazy happy that he was there. Ran back and forth and wanted to show drawings he’d made.
Hijo predilecto. The best in the world.
In the kitchen. Jorge and Paola. Mom still didn’t know that he was home.
Jorge’d rung the doorbell at midnight. At first Paola didn’t want to let him in. Through the sliver of open door: thirty minutes of whispered discussion. Finally he was allowed to crash on the couch in the living room. She was still pissed at him.
But now: she’d just picked up Junior at day care. She was leaning over the kitchen table. Jorge looked at her. Her eyes were no longer filled with laughter. Her dimples were gone. Instead: two creases dragged down the corners of her mouth. She looked twice as old as the last time he’d seen her. She looked ten times sadder.
“I’ve still not gotten a decent job, and my unemployment is almost up. Do you understand what that means? That I’m living at subsistence level and am going to need to get help from welfare.”
“I understand, things are rough. I promise, I’m gonna do everything I can for you.”
Paola hissed, “Cut that crap. If you start with that again, you might as well just leave.”
He didn’t say anything.
She didn’t say anything.
He looked around. On the counter: a SodaStream, a water boiler, a toaster. On the fridge: phone number to the local pizza place, day-care photos of Jorgito, and drawings. A pile with clothes on a chair. A beeping sound from the fridge—it probably needed to be switched out.
She lived nine-to-five. She didn’t take any risks, had paid her taxes and her unemployment every year. But who was helping her now? Welfare, with four grand a month? That was a joke. Family was the only thing that mattered in these situations.
The insane part: right now Jorge envied her life.
He saw images. Him and Paola in the kitchen at home in Sollentuna when they were little. They were standing beside the toaster, waiting. A piece of toast each. When the slices popped up, they threw themselves at them. Grabbed the bread. Chased back to the table, hurled themselves over the butter knife that was standing in the package of butter. You had to be the first. First to butter your toast. That was their own private little morning competition. Both wanted the butter to melt as much as possible on their piece of toast.
Jorge reached his hands over the table. Brushed by Paola’s elbows.
“Hermana, you’re everything to me. I’ve made so many mistakes lately. But I’m back now. I’m going to set it all right. Te prometo.”
Paola just looked at him. Jorge couldn’t read her eyes. Was she pissed again? Was she about to start crying? Did she understand all the love he felt?
He considered his own options. Either he tried to fix some sort of alibi for the Iranian—but he had no clue what Babak was gonna say when he was interrogated by the police about what he’d done on the CIT day. Or else he tried to free Babak. But with who? He wouldn’t be able to do it alone. And now all his homies were abroad or straight. E
xcept for JW—Jorge had to talk to him. Soon.
The other alternative: screw the Iranian, dig up his own and Mahmud’s money in the woods, and go back to Thailand. Buy a place with Hägerström’s help.
Fuck.
He regretted ever leaving his café life in Sweden. Who’d he think he was, anyway? All the fuckers, they just talked. About how easy it was to land mad gold. How easy it was to get loaded. But the criminal lifestyle was just as hard as a regular job. Or worse. Even more headaches, even more ulcers.
There were no easy roads. No broad paths. No life deluxe.
Everything was a lie.
Everything sucked cock.
Everything fucked him over and over.
He looked out the window: wind was blowing through the trees.
There was a STORM in his head.
44
The weather was nice, as usual. The shutter on the window created a faint striped light on the white wall. No paintings, no bookshelves, no curtains. Decorating wasn’t exactly the main interest in this place.
A lot of thoughts were running through Hägerström’d head. At the same time, a single thought overshadowed the others. A thought that gave him a kind of peace.
The past few days’d been earth-shattering.
He thought about Pravat. Hägerström wrote him several postcards a week. An adult might think that was hysterical, but he knew Pravat liked the pictures and the greetings, especially since they came from Thailand. Pravat had begun to ask questions about what adoption was and how his had happened. They Skyped sometimes, Hägerström from an Internet café, Pravat from his computer at school. Hägerström explained that both he and Mom had worked here, and that was why they had chosen Pravat. “You were the one we wanted, we chose you with love,” he said.