Life Deluxe

by Jens Lapidus

  Hägerström had been a cop, then a corrections officer. How well did that fit into Carl’s world? He didn’t dress like the others, he didn’t live like them. He was a fucking homosexual. Still, they accepted him like a brother—because they knew where he came from. Their parents knew his parents. Their grandparents had known his grandparents. They saw his ancestors on the wall. They knew they could trust him.

  The dinner ended. They rose from the table. Went into the smoking room. Carl distributed cigars. There were hunting trophies and more paintings of old Cornhielm af Hakunge men on the walls.

  They drank cognac and calvados. They talked business and hunting.

  JW did well. They liked him. Even if he wasn’t one of them, he wanted to be. That was okay.

  Hägerström heard how he filled in the five empty years of his life—the years he had actually been doing time. He talked about jobs at American banks and contacts with tax havens. He described the beach in Nassau, the restaurants in George Town, and the hotels in Panama. In passing, JW mentioned how one could be a little bit smart about things. Maybe invest something through someone down there, not let bureaucratic Sweden take such a big piece of the pie.

  Hägerström could see curiosity in a few of the men’s eyes. He wanted JW to keep trying to recruit potential customers.

  He couldn’t hear everything JW said during the rest of the night. But he heard him talking to Fredric.

  “I love Panama. They have those bearer shares there, sort of like promissory notes, but ten times better. It means that the owners of the companies can be completely anonymous. You know, the holder of the share certificate is the owner of the company, but his name isn’t listed in any record anywhere, and he doesn’t have to be registered on the share certificate. Not even the bank needs to know who the owner is. It’ll be like in the good old days, when there were Swiss numbered accounts. There aren’t too many countries in the world where that works anymore.”

  Fredric didn’t look uninterested.

  “For example,” JW went on, “you can add three hobos as board members, so the real owner’s name isn’t listed on the board either. The owner can even designate them by proxy. You can have a law firm down there that takes care of all the paperwork. Authorities around the world can go ahead and track as many transactions as they like—they’ll still never find out who the owner is. It’s fantastic. Right?”

  A few hours later Hägerström and JW were in a taxi on their way into the city. It was two o’clock in the morning. They were sitting in the backseat.

  JW was half-boozed and wholly happy.

  “That was so awesome, Martin. So damn nice of you to bring me, man.”

  As expected. JW would be indebted to Hägerström now. JW would want to get even closer to him, because what he had just experienced was his own personal paradise.

  But above all, JW would want Hägerström to connect him with some of those men again.

  He said, “Wonder what’s happening to Javier?”

  JW grinned. “Who cares? He’ll be convicted. Idiot, that’s what I think.”

  It was pitch-black outside. The woods, fields, residential areas on Värmdö looked cold.

  Right before they were about to leave, Carl had asked Hägerström to come upstairs with him for a moment.

  He had looked Hägerström in the eyes, deeply.

  “Martin, who is this guy you dragged along?”

  “Why, what do you mean?”

  “Did you become friends with him when you were working in the prison, or what?”

  “What’s your problem? He’s a nice guy. Everyone here likes him.”

  “I don’t care about that. Hugo told me who he is. Do you know who he is?”

  “Quit it, Carl. What the fuck is your problem?”

  “Your buddy, JW, who has been wined and dined in my home tonight, has done lots of years for possession. And now here he is, talking to Hugo Murray, Fredric, and other guys about doing dirty business with Gustaf Hansén, opening accounts in offshore companies in Panama and shit like that.”

  “It’s not that bad. Fredric wanted to see him again.”

  “If so, that’s on him,” Carl said. “I think it’s embarrassing.”

  Hägerström felt he was very near a breakthrough. JW not only trusted him and saw that he could get him customers, he wanted to be close to him. Now Hägerström just needed one tiny bit of information: where he kept his secret books. Evidence that would hold up. Physical documents that could show everything he was involved in.

  They drove across the bridge toward Nacka. The water below was dark. At a distance, the windows of the houses gleamed like small candles. This area hadn’t been this densely populated when Hägerström was a kid. He remembered the old Värmdö road. It used to take two hours to get to Avesjö. These days it took forty-five minutes.

  JW turned to face him. Focused his gaze. His voice was dead serious. “Why, Martin? Why?”

  Hägerström wondered what he meant.

  “Why?” JW said again. “Why’ve you worked as a cop and a screw when you’ve got all that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve got everything anyone could ever dream of. Money, friends, family. Why’ve you worked those jobs?”

  Hägerström ran his hand through his hair. “I have my brother, and I might have certain habits, what do I know. But you have to understand: I don’t have any money. I’m pretty much broke. The only thing I own is my apartment, and it’s heavily mortgaged. I did something seriously stupid a few years ago. I don’t really want to go into it, but the result is that I don’t have any money saved up. The opposite actually. I’m desperate for cash.”

  JW leaned back. “Still, if I were you, I wouldn’t have worked as a screw.”

  “No, but I don’t do that anymore.”

  “So you need money?”

  Hägerström cracked a crooked smile. “More than ever.”

  “I might have a job for you,” JW said. “It’s a piece of cake. All you have to do is bring a bag to a place for me. I’ll give you thirty large for it.”

  54

  Natalie was with Sascha in a rented Passat. On their way to a Hertz on Vasagatan.

  Not to return the car. Not to complain about anything. Instead: to check if Hertz’d rented out a green Volvo in mid-April and, if so, to whom.

  The thing: Natalie’d checked the film from the surveillance cameras more than ten times. It was impossible to make out the license plate number on the green Volvo. But last week, when she’d stood on the hotel balcony and seen JW get picked up in a rental car, it’d all clicked: a Hertz sticker on the car’s rear window. The dark spot on the rear window of the green Volvo could be just such a sticker.

  They’d been to Avis yesterday. They said they didn’t have any green cars in their fleet. The day before that, they’d stopped by Europcar. They had Volvos in their fleet. Natalie hassled them, argued, threatened—We have to know if you rented out a green Volvo in April. It took several hours. They rummaged through archives, ran searches through their databases. Europcar concluded: they had green cars in April, but they were all parked in their garage up in the north of the country.

  Natalie wouldn’t give up, so today it was Hertz’s turn.

  Also, Thomas’d called that morning. He’d gotten results from the database searches he’d arranged. The fingerprints that Forensic Rapid Research’d found at the Black & White Inn.

  He didn’t want to take the information over the phone. They were going to meet up as soon as she could. After Hertz.

  Sascha parked the car. The curb was painted yellow: parking forbidden. Sascha was in personal bankruptcy anyway—he’d have to take on any eventual parking ticket.

  First he walked around, scouted the scene. The Hertz office was five yards farther up the street.

  Since the Marko thing: the war with Stefanovic’d reached a new level. Nothing’d happened yet, but all her advisers agreed: Stefanovic was only licking his wounds. He was definitel
y not laying down his arms. The opposite—izdajnik would try to strike back ten times harder.

  Natalie switched her car out every other day. When she spent the night in her house, she slept in the safe room that Stefanovic’d had built—fate’s irony. Other nights she moved between the Hotel Diplomat, the Strand, and different Clarion hotels around the city. Sometimes she slept in Thomas’s den. His wife, Åsa, was supersweet. Their son, Sander, was a cutie.

  She drank eight Red Bull Shots a day and seven cups of coffee. She stopped taking valerian at night—munched on Sonata mixed with Xanax instead. She washed her hair only once a week, used dry shampoo the rest of the time. She only wore light makeup. She started eating white bread again for the first time in three years—the LCHF diet was for little girls. She didn’t work out, quit Facebook, and switched her cell phone out every fifth day.

  She’d dumped Viktor a few days ago.

  Not a big deal. He’d called to ask if she wanted to have dinner. Maybe he wanted to apologize for his behavior.

  She told him the truth. “We’ve grown apart.”

  He was silent.

  She offered up the number-one breakup cliché: “It’s not you, it’s me.”

  Viktor was breathing heavily.

  “I’ve change a lot since Dad was murdered,” she said. “I can’t have a normal relationship right now. There’s too much else going on. I’m sorry.”

  Viktor was about to say something. He sucked in air.

  Natalie interrupted him. “There’s no point for us to keep in touch and stuff. That’ll just be weird. I like you as a friend, Viktor. Really, I do.”

  “Is it that guy from Brasserie Godot?” Viktor asked.

  “Oh, get a grip. Didn’t you do what I told you to do? Didn’t you look up what happened to him?”

  “Just tell me. Is it him?”

  Natalie thought of JW in the hotel bed at the Diplomat. They’d gotten together two more times, at different hotels.

  Her voice hardened. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? It’s not about someone else. It’s only about me. I’m not the same person I was six months ago. I was a girl then. I’m an adult now.”

  Viktor was making strange sounds. Maybe he was crying.

  Natalie ended the conversation.

  She felt relieved. At the same time, irritated.

  She followed Sascha into the Hertz office.

  Two guys in their thirties were manning the counter. One of them—with a shaved head—was helping a customer. The other—with long hair tied back in a ponytail—was sitting at a computer. Looked fake-busy—wanted Natalie to get in line.

  She looked around. On the walls: old Hertz ads from the American 1950s. Men in hats and women in long skirts: SEE MORE, DO MORE, HAVE MORE FUN … THE HERTZ RENT-A-CAR-WAY! THE HERTZ IDEA HAS BECOME … THE HERTZ HABIT. More: posters with images of the cars you could rent. Volvo S80—they had it in several different models. And colors?

  A couch in pleather against the wall. The customer at the counter kept talking. Natalie waited for five minutes. The guy with the shaved head didn’t get freed up. Natalie wanted to do this the soft way, but still, she didn’t want to wait any longer.

  She leaned over the counter, eyed the ponytail guy in front of the computer. White, short-sleeved shirt with a name plaque pinned to his breast.

  “Anton,” she said. “May I ask you something?”

  The guy almost jumped in surprise.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’m going to need some special help. I have some questions about different cars that you’ve rented out.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Natalie glanced to the side. The customer and the other Hertz guy were busy with each other. “I think it’s best if we take it in your office.”

  Anton was reluctant. Natalie coaxed him. Explained that she was a big Hertz customer—that much was true: but she was never the one listed on the actual rental contracts.

  Finally Anton caved. Natalie and Sascha were invited to follow him behind the counter.

  An office slash kitchen. A sink in one corner, coffee cups, a coffee maker, and a mini-fridge. A small table and four chairs. The other half of the room: a wide desk with two office chairs on either side. Phones, computers, lots of binders.

  Anton remained standing in the middle of the office. “So what can I do for you?”

  “I’m interested in knowing whether you’ve rented out a green Volvo S80 at some point during the first half of April this year,” Natalie said. “And if so, to whom.”

  Anton crossed his arms over his chest. “Unfortunately, we don’t release information about other customers.”

  Natalie didn’t want any bullshit. “But Avis releases that kind of information.”

  “Well, we’re not Avis. We want our customers to feel safe with Hertz.”

  “But do you have green Volvo S80s in your fleet?”

  “That I can say that we do, yes.”

  “Did you have that car in April this year?”

  “The answer is yes.”

  “How many of those cars were in Stockholm? You can check that, can’t you?”

  Anton scratched his head. He had an earring in his right ear. The guy looked like Anders Borg, the ponytailed Swedish finance minister.

  “Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem. But why do you want to know all of this?”

  Natalie pulled the same story that she’d told Avis and Europcar. “We’re hunting down a hit-and-run. There was an accident in Östermalm on April fourteenth, a child was killed. The police have still not been able to identify the car, so now we’re trying to take matters into our own hands. I assume Hertz will cooperate for such a cause.”

  Anton continued to scratch his head. “Oh, wow. Well, let me take a look.”

  He sat down at one of the computers. Typed on the keyboard. Clicked on different windows and icons with the mouse.

  There were the same vintage ads on the walls in here as out by the counter.

  Natalie thought of her agreement with JW. He’d said that he didn’t dare break free from Stefanovic unless someone got rid of him. She’d asked him what, then, he needed her protection for. The answer was something entirely different. A grand coup: JW was planning on blindsiding his customers. Screwing over the people who’d put money in his hands. Given him the sensitive responsibility of laundering their money. And there wasn’t exactly a risk that his customers would go to the police.

  His idea was simple. Genius. Insanely dangerous.

  She had to think it over. On the other hand: she had to kill Stefanovic. JW was the key.

  And also: she needed him—it felt as though he were her mirror image. As if he truly understood her, saw inside her, knew who she was. She felt for him. Maybe too much.

  And if she could get a percentage of his rip-off scheme, all her problems would be solved. Except for the one question: who’d murdered Dad?

  Anton pushed his chair back. “We had a total of two hundred rentals of Volvo S80s during the entire month of April. Prior to April fourteenth, we had eighty-five rentals. I’m not entirely sure, but I think we had two green cars here in Stockholm. That means that we had seven green Volvo rentals prior to April fourteenth.”

  Natalie thought: the guy wasn’t stupid.

  “Can I see who the seven renters were?” she asked.

  “I told you, you can’t do that. We have a privacy policy.”

  There were three ways to deal with this. She could set Sasha loose on him—she would get what she wanted but risk police reports and other crap like that. The second alternative was to show this Anton guy her tougher side. Threaten to set Sascha loose to him, threaten to chop off his ugly ponytail and stuff it down his throat.

  Natalie chose a third way. She placed four five-hundred-kronor bills on the desk.

  Anton just stared.

  “If you give me a printout of who rented those seven cars, you can go buy yourself something nice this afternoon.”

  She and Sascha
were still sitting in the car on Vasagatan.

  She’d never thought Anton would break bad—the guy seemed more blue-eyed than a Swedish tourist in Marrakech. He just smiled, pocketed the five-hundred-kronor bills, sat back down in front of the computer, hit the keyboard, and printed seven pages.

  He gave them to Natalie in a plastic folder with the Hertz logo on it.

  She couldn’t wait. She climbed into the backseat. Retrieved the blurry image from the surveillance cameras of the green Volvo and its driver on the seat. Picked up the seven printed pages that Anton’d give her and held them in her hand. The thing: Hertz always made a digital copy of the customer’s driver’s license.

  Shit.

  Six men and one woman.

  The driver’s license photos were bad. Black and white, blurry, difficult to make out. She weeded out the woman straight away.

  Held them up to the light. Against the seat. Placed the printouts next to each other, one by one.

  The image from the surveillance camera was beside them.

  John Johansson, Kurt Sjögren, Kevin Whales, Daniel Wengelin, Tor Jonasson, Hamed Ghasemi.

  Process of elimination. Hamed was out immediately. The dude was too dark.

  She compared again. Kevin Whales was young, born in 1990. The man captured by the surveillance camera was older, had a wider face. She weeded out Whales.

  Four remained.

  Fuck, the surveillance images were so crappy. Why even have those cameras if you can’t recognize a person in a car from less than two hundred feet?

  She ranked the photos. One to five.

  Daniel Wengelin: straw blond, thin. Thirty-six years old. A one—he wasn’t anywhere close to the man in the car.