by Jens Lapidus
Natalie looked down at her appetizer: duck liver terrine with pomegranate, port wine jelly, duck leg rillette, and toasted brioche. She yearned for regular cabbage salad.
Everything around her felt foreign. Silly. Almost repulsive. She felt like a tourist in this place. This wasn’t her world anymore. In a way, it was as if she’d come home—she felt more comfortable sitting with the men in the library than she’d ever felt with Louise, Tove, and the others, even though they talked about much stranger things.
“Was yours good?” Louise asked.
Natalie picked at her food. “Mmm. It’s fine.”
“Did you see? Jet Set Carl is here.”
The same old obsession with B-list celebs and Stureplan brats.
“Mmm.”
“Did you see Fredrika over there?” Louise said. “She can’t even walk in her shoes. Girls who walk in heels like they’re doing lunges or something—that’s the worst, right?”
Natalie glanced over at the girl Louise’d pointed out. She couldn’t see anything strange about the way she was walking. The dude two tables over was trying to get her attention again. Natalie ignored him.
She thought about JW—wondered how he would’ve done it. The guy over there was so crude and unsophisticated.
JW’d been in her thoughts often, ever since they saw each other last. Okay, he was important for business. He might know something about the politician. But there were others who were more important. Still: she couldn’t let JW go. She wanted to see him again. She got the feeling that he was there, in the background, all the time. Seemed to know more than anyone else. Seemed to be holding even more strings than Stefanovic. But it wasn’t just that—she was tempted by who he was too. He exuded a kind of self-confidence that attracted her, very strongly. And what’s more, he was a double player in so many ways—just like her.
Louise droned on. About new creams from Dior. A new nightclub in Paris. A new blog online. Natalie was only half-listening.
She floated away again.
Goran’d called yesterday. Thomas and he’d gone to the Black & White Inn a few days ago. Goran: was normally short, straightforward, and simple in a military way. But he’d provided a vivid description of what’d happened.
He’d walked straight up to the woman in the bar—everyone knew she was the gatekeeper for the side business at this place—and said, in Russian, “I wanna talk to you after closing. We’ll wait.”
At one o’clock, the place closed its doors. The bartender put the chairs on top of the table, started mopping the floor. The woman led Thomas and Goran behind the bar. Through the kitchen and out on the other side. The hallway smelled of disinfectant and garlic. A man emerged from a room. Delivered a quick pat-down. Then he went back inside. The woman opened another door. She, Goran, and Thomas sat down in dirty chairs in a small office. No frills. Got right down to it.
She asked them what they wanted to buy.
Goran responded in Swedish, “We want information.”
The woman locked eyes with him. “I don’t sell that.”
“Do you know who we represent?”
The woman kept staring at him.
“We don’t want trouble,” he said. “You don’t want trouble. But you know what happened to Kum Rado. We have to investigate it. Even your people must understand that. Right?”
The woman didn’t respond.
He continued explaining. They knew from a certain secure source that Radovan’d been murdered with weapons and explosives purchased at the Black & White Inn. He wanted to know who’d bought the gear.
The woman’d still not dropped his gaze. “I have no idea. You know that. Who do you think I am? Someone who checks passport numbers and fingerprints on the people we do business with?”
Goran didn’t cave. “Maybe not, but we have our own ways of checking that kind of thing. I want you to inform your people that we want to see all the objects he touched.”
“What do you mean? You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“What we mean is that you’re going to take out all the objects that he touched. And you can go ahead and call your people now.”
That’s how it’d gone down. Magically, the Black & White Inn agreed to Goran’s demands, in exchange for ten grand in cash.
He’d walked back out to his car. Picked up the person who was waiting in the backseat: Ulf Bergström. Chemist formerly employed at the national forensic lab—these days partner in his own lab, Forensic Rapid Research AB. A private alternative to the government’s forensic authority.
Ulf sat in that office all night. Brushed, taped, swabbed. According to the woman: the person who’d bought the weapons’d also handled a bag, two guns, and four grenades. It was almost six months ago. The chances of finding anything were less than getting a parking spot on Östermalm after ten o’clock on a Sunday night.
Still, it was worth a try.
Ulf Bergström’d promised to get back to them as soon as he had the test results.
They’d finished eating. Natalie suggested they have a cigarette in the outdoor seating area.
They walked out. Each lit a Marlboro Menthol. The air was cool. Infraheat billowed from suspended heaters.
A waiter came over with a tray with two glasses of champagne and said, “Courtesy of the man over there.”
Natalie saw the flirt-dude wink at her.
“Do you know who that is?” Louise said.
“No.”
“Me neither. But he doesn’t seem too shabby, huh?”
Natalie just shook her head.
Louise asked how things were going with Viktor.
“We don’t see each other too much, and he’s kind of a pain.”
“Oh no. Like, how?”
“I don’t know. It’s been so long. He annoys me. He doesn’t understand that I’m sad sometimes and that I think about Dad. Either he just wants to go do stuff all the time, or else he’s working like crazy. I don’t have time for that. You know, I think he’s a real loser.”
“But maybe you should go away somewhere together, get some quality time.”
Louise had bad suggestions. Natalie definitely didn’t have time to go away right now.
“No, I don’t want to do that. I can’t right now. And besides, I’d just get even more annoyed at him. We argued yesterday.”
“Oh, sweetie. About what?”
“He’s jealous. Started going off about me seeing someone else and stuff. But that’s just bullshit. I have an assistant sometimes, that’s all. But Viktor doesn’t get that. He thinks I screen his calls. That I can’t explain what I’ve been doing. But that’s bullshit too. It’s just that I don’t want to tell him everything.”
“But can’t you see where he’s coming from, at least a little bit?”
“No, not after everything with Dad. And then he’s got the balls to ask me if I could lend him money. Can you believe it?”
“Wow, what nerve!”
Louise checked herself. Her eyes flitted around. “That guy over there,” she said. “He’s waving to us again. He wants us to come over to his table. Wanna go?”
She pointed at the flirt guy. The dude: dark blazer, striped shirt unbuttoned at the neck, a pink tie with a loosened knot.
Natalie wasn’t interested one iota.
“No, I think I’m gonna go home now,” she said.
Louise looked disappointed. “Come on, sweetie. I think you should have some fun.”
Natalie set her glass down. “Are you kidding me?”
Adam was keeping a safe distance, around four yards. They were walking toward his car, which was parked down on the short end of the Humlegården Park. The night was dark. Maybe forty degrees out. One of Natalie’s contacts was bothering her.
She didn’t regret having blown Louise off. Since Dad’s murder, she didn’t feel close to those girls anymore. Let them busy themselves with their little lives until they matured, in a few years.
Her thoughts were dancing through her head like the lea
ves in the park. Maybe she was drunk. Maybe she was just drained after all that’d been going on during the past few weeks. Maybe she needed to sit down in front of a computer and try to make some order out of everything that was happening.
The war was raging out there. Stefanovic’s reaction after the meeting in the Tower’d been immediate. The lawyer that was dealing with Dad’s estate’d received some nightly phone calls from an unknown man with some kind of Eastern accent. The person promised to gut the lawyer and his wife belly-up if he didn’t give Stefanovic’s front men back signatory rights for several of the companies. The day after: Marko and two other guys with baseball bats’d stepped into Dad’s gym, Fitnesse Club, had really worked the place over. When the people working the front desk tried to stop the shit, they were jumped. Two were still in the hospital, one with life-threatening skull fractures. Two days after the assault: an amphetamine dealer found his dog’s head in the trunk of his car with a Post-it note on the floor next to it: Last warning. Don’t sell to Kranjic. The same week: several bars downtown received letters in the mail that smelled of gasoline. The message was clear enough: No more business with Kranjic.
Natalie thought: Come on, Stefanovic, you’re not Don Vito fucking Corleone. You’re a goddamn loser.
Goran told Natalie that they had to strike back. Of course they were going to strike back.
“But how?”
“We’ll do what we usually do.”
She let Goran command the details of the war. They tried to torch the Tower. Unfortunately the place survived with only minor damages. They hijacked a truckload of cigarettes that Stefanovic’s people’d ordered. They slaughtered Stefanovic’s best racehorse, Tima Efes. Put the horse head in a giant cooler and messengered it to him. They brought a bouncer who was connected with Stefanovic to a warehouse in Huddinge and cracked his kneecap with a hammer. That was a first revenge for the assault at Fitnesse Club.
Personally, Natalie was working like a maniac. She spoke to and e-mailed the banks every single day. She talked to Goran and Thomas. She gave orders to Bogdan and others. Planned excursions on the town with one of her bodyguards. She got in touch with people on the inside who were about to gate out, donated money to their wives. She donated money to the National Serbian Association in Stockholm. She donated money to the Näsbypark sporting club. Soon she wouldn’t have a cent left—Bogdan had to go to Switzerland soon, very soon. She just had to sort everything out with JW first.
She took another step: she contacted Melissa Cherkasova.
Rang the doorbell at her apartment on Råsundavägen. Adam and Sascha in the background. It was three o’clock in the afternoon.
She knew Melissa was home. Sascha’d been sitting in a car, watching the apartment for ten hours. The girl’d entered the building but not come out.
The peephole grew dark. She heard a voice. Strong accent, yet still correct Swedish.
“What do you want?”
“I just want to talk. My name is Natalie Kranjic.”
The voice on the other side sounded weak. “I know. You’ve already talked to me when you talked to Martina.”
“Yes, but I want to talk to you directly. I promise nothing will happen to you.”
There was a rustling with the door chain on the inside.
Melissa was standing there barefoot, wearing tight jeans and a loosely fitting T-shirt. Un-made-up, unstyled, uncertain.
The same look in her eyes as when Natalie’d followed her home.
Sascha closed the door behind them.
Melissa didn’t show them into the apartment. Natalie tried to scope out the place. A small one-bedroom with a separate kitchen. She saw a couch and a coffee table. She saw a laptop and DVDs on the coffee table.
They remained standing in the hall.
“I know everything about you,” Natalie said. “I know what you do. I know what you did with my father in the apartment on Björngårdsgatan. I know what you’re doing with the politician Bengt Svelander. I know you’re filming everything.”
Melissa stared down at the floor.
“I don’t mind what you do.” Natalie went on. “But Martina’s told you not to give any of the material to Stefanovic, right? Listen to me.”
Natalie took a breath, then continued, “I’m not going to be involved in the kind of business you work in. I’ve told my men that Stefanovic can continue if he wants, but we’re not going to be selling escort services anymore. You can also do whatever you want, but personally, I don’t like that business. Do you understand?”
Melissa continued to stare down into the floor.
“But the material belongs to me. You are going to give it to me and not to Stefanovic.”
Melissa didn’t move.
“So,” Natalie said. “Have you given anything to Stefanovic?”
Melissa’s voice was even weaker than before, “No, not yet. But he wants it.”
“Who’s he going to give it to?”
“I have no idea.”
“I understand. But in that case, you can give me the material now.”
Melissa pointed at the computer. “I have to transfer the material to a DVD or USB in order for you to get it. It’ll take an hour.”
Natalie liked what she was hearing. But she didn’t want to stand here waiting for a whole hour.
“In that case, we’ll take your computer with us. I’ll give it back soon.”
“But you don’t know which files they are,” Melissa said. “There are hundreds, and many of them are blurry.”
Natalie nodded. “Okay, this is what we’ll do: you transfer the material and get in touch with me as soon as it’s ready.”
Back in the Stockholm night. She and Adam were walking along Humlegården Park.
Melissa hadn’t been in touch. Natalie was starting to get impatient, but she had a lot of other stuff to deal with right now.
Two hundred yards farther down, she saw the white mushroom sculpture on Stureplan. The lights were bouncing up toward the park. Shouts from sloshed sluts sauntering to Sturecompagniet. Dudes desperate to party yelling at one another. The sound of cabs swishing by.
She was wondering what to do about Viktor.
At that moment: one of the cabs stopped right behind Natalie. The brakes screeched.
The back door flew open.
A man hurled himself out.
She turned around in the same instant that he caught up with her. He grabbed hold of her arm.
She heard Adam yell something.
She sucked in cool air.
One single thought: Is this it?
What was happening?
* * *
REPORT
STOCKHOLM COUNTY POLICE
Report processed by: Stockholm County Police
Dossier number: 2010-K30304-10
Date of report: October 2
Received by: Officer David Carlsson
Entered by: Officer David Carlsson
Report given by: Officer on duty
Crime Scene Area Code: 21A3049034900
STUREGATAN, HUMLEGÅRDEN PARK, STOCKHOLM
TIME OF CRIME
Saturday, September 29 at 23.00-23.10
CRIME/INCIDENT
Aggravated assault
SUMMARY
PLAINTIFF
Axel Jolie
WITNESSES
Saman Kurdo
Fredric Vik
SUSPECTS
Unknown
Description
Susp1: Middle-age man, large build, around 6’2”, light brown hair in a side part, long black overcoat, dark jeans.
Susp2: Young woman, ca 5’9”, long dark hair, dark clothes.
Description of Events
Dispatch received a call from Saman Kurdo. Police vehicles 2039 and 2048 arrived on the scene.
EVENT
The man in the bushes has regained consciousness when Officer David Carlsson and Officer Emma Skogsgren first arrive on the scene. The person in question is Axel Jolie. He is intoxicated. H
e has sustained injuries to the face and head. He claims that he was attacked when he stopped in a taxi in order to speak with a woman he thought he knew. At this time, the suspected man (Susp1) threw himself forward and tore Jolie out of the cab. After that, Susp1 delivered blows to Jolie’s face so that he lost his balance. Then Susp1 pulled out what he perceived as a firearm and forced Jolie into the park. The woman (Susp 2) remains by the men’s side throughout and is yelling at Jolie. They walk about ten yards into the park.
Susp1 then pushes Jolie into some bushes. Jolie loses his balance once again. Susp1 kicks him in the stomach as well as several times in the head. After that, Susp2 enters the bushes. She strikes Jolie in the face several times with her open palm and yells. Then Jolie is forced to get on his knees and apologize. At that point, Susp2 kicks Jolie’s penis. This causes terrible pain and Jolie loses consciousness.
INJURIES
Axel Jolie has swelling on the forehead and over the eyes as well as on his cheeks, as well as blood over his right eyebrow. He is bleeding on the inside of his cheek. He has a superficial wound on his left ear. He also has redness on his right arm as well as on his left thigh. He is in a state of shock. He did not want to show his penis.
WITNESS REPORTS
The taxi driver Saman Kurdo states that Axel Jolie got into the taxi by Linnégatan. He asked him to drive slowly and then to turn down on Sturegatan beside the Humlegården Park. It seemed as though he was looking for someone. When they saw the woman in question near the park, he asked Kurdo to pull up beside her and make a quick stop. Jolie threw himself out of the car and tried to talk to and grab hold of the woman. It did not seem to Kurdo as though the woman knew Jolie particularly well. She resisted. After a few seconds, a man jumped out and struck Jolie in the head. Jolie ended up on the pavement. Then they all ran into the park. Kurdo heard screams coming from the park. At that point, he called the police and tried to call for help from a man on the other side of the street.
Fredric Vik was called over by Saman Kurdo, who was standing beside his taxi on Sturegatan. At first, he did not understand what was happening. He walked over and asked Kurdo. Kurdo said there was an assault going on a ways into the park. Vik walked in toward the park, he heard sounds in there. Farther off, he saw two people walking away from the scene at a rapid pace. He did not see what they looked like. He looked around. He saw Jolie lying in some bushes. It appeared as though he was unconscious.