by Jens Lapidus
“Dobre dosao, come on in, Mrado.”
Stefanovic, Rado’s jack-of-all-trades, opened the door. Led Mrado through the house.
Radovan was seated in a leather armchair in the library. Dapper as always. Dark blue blazer. Light-colored corduroys. Well coiffed. The furrows/scars on his face spelled out the word respect.
Dark wallpaper. Tall as well as short bookcases along the walls. On the walls, above the shelves: framed maps, paintings, and religious icons. Europe and the Balkans. Lovely Donau. The Battle of Kosovo Polje. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. History’s heroes. Portraits of Karayorye. The Holy Sava. Most of all-maps of Serbia-Montenegro.
Stefanovic left them alone.
Radovan, in Serbian: “Welcome.”
“The pleasure is all mine. We don’t see each other that often.” Mrado remained standing.
“Have a seat, for Christ’s sake. No, we don’t see each other that often. I guess that’s for the best. But we talk on the phone.”
“Of course. As often as you like.”
“Mrado, let’s skip the pleasantries. You know me-I express myself plainly. No frills. That doesn’t mean it’s personal. I think you know how I feel about what happened at Kvarnen.”
“I think I do.”
“A total clusterfuck. Shit like that just can’t happen. I trust you, and you’ve made a fool of yourself. Now the whole situation’s hysterical. Do you understand what the hell you’ve done? The blowback could be war.”
“I’m incredibly sorry, Rado. I misjudged the situation. I take full responsibility for what happened.”
In Mrado’s head: The whole shit show was really Patrik’s fault. But there’s no point in blaming others. If you’re in charge, you’re responsible.
Radovan said, “Well, you fuckin’ better. Anything else would be crazy. You know our situation. That skinhead you used, Patrik, was convicted of aggravated assault. He can’t call or write when he wants. No information goes in or out. We don’t know shit about what he’s saying about us in there. You can’t trust just anyone. For your sake, you better hope the fucker’s no canary. For our sake, too.”
“I think it’s cool.”
“You’ve done good all these years. And now this? Why didn’t you stop that unprofessional skin faggot? The police can crack that guy easier than an egg in a frying pan. What’s more? Hells Angels, Bandidos, Boman, or someone else can flip their shit. The relations between the factions in this city are tense enough as is. Things can’t get worse.”
Mrado was usually Mr. Hard Ass. But Rado was the kind of man that people, even the Yugo Mafia, lowered their voices around and avoided eye contact with. Mrado felt the worry grow in the pit of his stomach. Radovan was really angry. Pulsating thought: Can’t fuck up my relationship with Radovan. Repeat: Can’t fuck up my relationship with Radovan.
On the other hand, Mrado more than pulled his weight. Worked the coat checks, racketeering, and more. Remembered the time under Dragan Joksovic, when he and Rado’d been equals. Colleagues in Jokso’s monopoly of violence. Now Radovan was sitting there saying that he’d “done good all these years.” What bullshit. Radovan was the one who’d done good under Jokso. It was repulsive: Radovan was playing God.
What’s more: Mrado’s cut these days wasn’t big enough. Rado let him in on too little. Most important, too little of the profits. As if they didn’t have a past. As if R.’d always been at the top of the ladder.
But now he had to grovel pretty. Think constructively. Come up with solutions. Subtle mood fixers.
“Rado, Patrik’s good. On my honor. Yeah, he’s a hothead, still too impulsive, but he’s no rat. He’s cool. He knows the rules. I’m not worried about that.”
“That’s good news. But we could be in shit up to our knees all the same. Patrik’s dumb. The guy needs Google Maps to find his own dick. There’re a couple possible scenarios. The first is that the pigs press the skinhead till he serves our asses on a plate. Then they’re gonna start the world’s biggest fucking investigation, cops swarming every bar we’ve got stakes in. Maybe we’ll have to shut down a whole lot of our businesses, pull out. Another scenario is that HA, Göran Boman, or someone else flips ’cause the strategy we’ve been pushing on the coat-check front’s too heavy on the artillery. We don’t want to make the situation any worse than it is, Mrado, and you, of all people, know that. Four of our guys went down in the last round. And let’s not even get into what happened to you. I know war. All of me’s a fucking war. You know the balance-after Jokso, no one’s allowed to be king. Between us, Mrado, they can forget about it. But this is no time to rock the boat.”
“A good analysis, Rado. As always. Allow me to offer some additional ideas. Want to hear them?”
“Absolutely. That’s also why we’re getting together now. What’re you thinking?”
“Patrik knows the drill. Knows our code. Rats catch cold. Only a couple days ago, he saw what happened to a dude at the gym who was acting up. And that was no little guy, either. The skinhead gets it. If he snitches, he won’t live long enough to make it to the joint’s unguarded urinals and back. Trust me, I know a lot of people who’ve been taken down in the Tidaholm pen. But that won’t happen, him snitching.”
Mrado’d been thinking. Loaded up on ideas. Helicopter perspective. Big-picture perspective. Future perspective. Possibility. Expansion flexibility. Radovan wanted to be king. He had potential. At the same time-Mrado wanted to bring up his cut of the coat-check business.
“We can’t lose the coat checks. Since we put it in high gear last year, that business has yielded around three hundred thousand per month in the winter season and just under one hundred fifty thousand per month in the summer. We’ve got about twenty places. The more places we can control, the more people’ll get used to paying a fee. Finally, every little shit pub in this city’ll be able to charge people something to check their stuff. The crux is what we do with the gold. The coat checks are perfect. We operate cash only. Big Brother doesn’t have a chance in hell to calculate our revenue. All salaries are under the table. The places themselves don’t declare a cent anyway.”
Radovan smiled. He loved cash talk. Squinted. Brought out paper and pen. Calculator. He already knew the numbers. He already knew the advantages. He already knew the money had to be laundered. But Mrado knew that Radovan liked to hear what Radovan already knew.
“It works well, Mrado. I agree, we’ve got laundry issues right now. We need to get rid of the money somewhere. Clara’s and Diamond can’t swallow the kind of sums the coat-check business brings in. We need more companies. In a way, it’s a luxury problem. Sign that business is booming.”
Mrado replied, “Video-rental stores would work, I think. Big Brother can never find out how many movies we actually rent out. We’ll inflate the returns as much as we want. I can do it. I’ve done it before. If it gets messy after all and the state starts getting suspicious, someone else’s head’ll fall. A straw man.”
“Right on. Who?”
“Someone with no folding history. Not a total tool, but someone who doesn’t have a lot to lose, either. I’ll get on it. But the fall guy doesn’t really protect if Big Bro wants the laundry money back. Mostly protects against bankruptcy if we get hit with fat tax debt or something. But you don’t want to get your name dirty with suspicious bankruptcies that’ll nix your trade license. This’ll be perfect.”
“You know this. Start tomorrow.”
Stefanovic knocked. Brought in chai tea and biscotti. Radovan leaned back. Dipped the biscotti in his tea. Like a Sven. Smacked his lips. They made some small talk about Radovan’s daughter. She was starting school. Private school, inner-city school, the suburban school-what was best? Mrado vented his own shit. That he saw Lovisa too seldom. The custody battle with the mother. Rado-style: asked if there was anything he could do. Mrado thought, Hell no. If Social Services finds out you’re in the picture, my custody battle is shot.
Two real Persian carpets on the floor. Radovan’d decora
ted this as his classicist room. The books on the shelves were mostly for show. On the shelves: encyclopedias and map books. Collected works by Serbian writers. Mrado didn’t even recognize the names: Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, Sima Milutinović Sarajlija, Kraljević Marko. Only one was familiar: the Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić.
Mrado thought about his teacher in Native Language Studies class, who’d gotten him to read Ivo Andrić. A year later, he was Södertälje’s toughest fist.
Radovan set down his glass of chai.
“The smokes business is going well. Goran’s good. But in the long run, we can’t rely on it. Society at large is against smoking these days. The ban on cigarettes at restaurants is catastrophic, the new pictures of black lungs are repulsive, and increased customs control with non-EU countries is devastating.”
“You’re right, but it’s important that we maintain our contacts with the teamsters. The logistics wouldn’t be easy to build back up from scratch. Soon all of the Balkans will open up with EU membership. Heroin is eight times cheaper there. Even if it rises somewhat, we’ve got to be prepared. The same truckers who drive smokes today can drive brown sugar tomorrow.”
They kept the discussion going. Went through all of Radovan’s businesses and projects: cigarette and booze smuggling, the debt collectors, drugs, the Jack Vegas gambling machine fakes, the apartment brothel, the call-service hookers.
And then the semilegal ones: Clara’s, the bar, and the Diamond, a nightclub. Laundromats.
The abstract read cash flow, rising dough, money that had to be taxed to come back clean. The bar and nightclub didn’t cut it. Radovan had to appear like a law-abiding, respectable citizen.
The conclusion: They definitely needed two video-rental stores. Maybe more.
All along, Mrado had wanted to get to the question of his cut of the coat checks.
Finally, he raised the tea glass to his lips and tried to drink from it, even though it was obviously empty. Hoped he’d softened Radovan up enough.
“Rado, I also want to talk about the economics of the coat checks.”
Radovan looked up from the number-covered papers that were spread out in front of him. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“Maybe I didn’t handle this whole Patrik thing too well. But I’m taking responsibility for it and I do a good job. We just went over the numbers. They point straight up. What’ll my cut be?”
Silence.
Mrado tried to push it. “Did you hear what I said?”
Concrete wall.
“Mrado, let me make one thing clear. You don’t make the rules here. No matter how fucking brilliant your business ideas are, they’re all mine. No matter how well you do your business, in the end it’s my cash. We’ll have a discussion about your piece of the pie when I feel like it. Let’s not ruin a good night with that kind of thing. I’m going to forget what you just asked me, okay?”
Mrado, speechless. How could he have made such a miscalculation? And he’d groveled like a fucking faggot begging to be reamed just to ask the question about his cut. Another thought took hold: One day, someone else will be king of the hill.
It was eight o’clock. They moved to the dining room. Radovan’s wife came home. Made small talk with Radovan and Mrado for half an hour. She was thin. Mrado thought she was the most beautiful Serbian woman he’d ever seen.
She ate in the kitchen with the daughter.
Radovan acted irreproachably. As though Mrado’s question’d never been asked.
The mood went back to normal.
They uncorked a Burgundy from 1994. Radovan tasted it. “I’m assuming you already know this, but Jorge Salinas Barrio fled the coop.”
“Ratko told me. I think some rag had a story on it last week, too. It didn’t say much, but apparently he hopped over the wall. Impressive.”
“It’s a bad thing he’s out. We wrapped him at the trial. He might be sitting on a whole mess of shit about our blow business. From what I’ve gathered, he’s pissed at us, and his life is pretty shitty right now. On the run, not a lot of friends. He might decide to do something stupid. I honestly don’t know how much he knows. Do you?”
“Not really. But I know what you mean. What should we do?”
“Nothing yet. But if he tries anything, we gotta stop him. Remind him who’s boss. Rough him up. Right, Mrado, the way we deal with troublemakers?”
Mrado stared down at his wineglass. Was that last statement referring to how Rado was going to treat him if he kept making demands? Either way, the Jorge thug should get it right now. The Latino was a threat to the Yugos.
Mrado had other things to think about. Deal with the coat checks after the Kvarnen fiasco, find a front man to build up the money-laundering biz, fight for his daughter. The Latino’d have to wait.
What’s more: no point in overstepping Radovan’s bounds, taking things into his own hands. Their relationship already felt strained enough.
He’d wait for a green light before he went after that Jorge fucker.
And their strained relationship-he had to think about that.
10
Jorge the man, rey de los bandidos, blew the popo outta the water. The 5-0 could drag their bloodhounds around. Forget it-they weren’t finding Jorge-boy.
He was out. He was loose. He was the city’s slickest slumdog.
He thought about how the gab must be rolling. The man who ran faster than Ben Johnson. The man who screwed the screws up the ass with his smarts. The man who caged out of Österåker with the help of a couple of bedsheets and a hook from a basketball hoop. Slam dunk. Gracias y adiós.
The man. The myth. The legend.
And they didn’t have a fuckin’ clue.
Jorge’s plans before the break had been well oiled. His plan now: stay alive, and stay free. Get cash. Bust the border. In other words: not much of a plan.
Santo Sergio’d delivered the ladder at the right place. Hauled ass to his car and driven outta the woods before Jorge’d even gotten halfway over the clearing. He’d parked the other car perfectly.
Fugitivo fantástico. A Latino with balls.
Jorge’d driven like a maniac down the forest road. Like a back-road racer. The COs missed his curveball, didn’t see him get in the car. Thought he was still booking it on foot. He’d planned it that way. The road forked three times. By the time the screws realized he was on wheels, it’d probably take them an hour to figure out which road he’d taken. Out on the highway. Past Åkersberga. Exit. Into the woods. That’s where he’d met Sergio. Sergio’d jacked the car that he’d left waiting for Jorge three days earlier. They dumped it. A tank of gas in the trunk. Torched it. Not worth waiting around to watch the flames.
That’s where the trail ended: deep in Hansel and Gretel land.
If the 5-0 even got that far.
He’d arrived at the apartment at two-thirty in the morning. They’d waited all night in the car until the coast was clear-wanted to avoid neighbors seeing Jorge go in. They ate falafel, drank Coke and coffee. Listened to Hit FM. Chatted. Stayed awake. Jorge chillin’, coming down off the adrenaline high.
The following days: Jorge could live in the empty apartment. It belonged to Sergio’s aunt. The old lady’d been in a retirement home since seven weeks back.
The deal: Jorge could stay for ten days tops. Jorge couldn’t so much as wiggle a foot out the door. Jorge had to lay subterranean low. After that, he could do what he liked, but he had to pay Sergio back for everything-he’d sworn his life on it.
Jorge was grateful. Sergio was an angel. Had already done more than anyone. Sacrificed. Gambled. Taken risks. Like family oughta do for one other, but what no one’d ever done for him. He was planning on staying no more than a week.
Shut in the apartment. Heavy-he was supposed to be free. Now this, caged again. The only difference between this and the cell at Österåker was a few additional square feet. He had to prepare for his new life on the run.
Jorge let his beard grow. Cut his hair. Dyed it blacker.
He asked Sergio to buy small curlers and perm solution: thio balance perm. Read the instructions over and over, all the fine print. Stood over the bathtub. Rinsed his hair under the water. Carefully rolled his hair on the curlers. Good thing no one was watching. Felt like a real fairy.
Practiced a new walk. Tried to disguise his voice as much as possible.
Jorge knew: People instinctively recognize you by your body language, the way you walk, talk, run your hand through your hair, and smile. Your unconscious tics. The way you use certain expressions. Rodriguez’s only good deed, according to Jorge: The dude’d recorded home videos of him and Paola when they were kids. Two completely different people: a boy and a girl, sinewy and graceful, angular and round. And still, their body language was almost identical. Jorge remembered. Codes of character more dangerous than looks.
Change that kind of stuff, Jorge-boy-fast as fuck.
The apartment was rough. He wanted out. Took down the mirror from the hall and propped it up against the wall in the living room. Walked around from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. that first day with Marge Simpson hair and rehearsed new moves. Practiced new tics. Practiced new lingo.
After twelve hours, his new hair-curly. It wasn’t as kinky as he’d hoped, even though he’d kept the rollers in double the instructed time.
He smeared himself with self-tanner: Piz Buin, the darkest kind. According to the directions on the back of the tube, the color would last for three days. Should work.
Finally, the total effect: he looked like a zambo-el zambo macanudo. A lip and nose job and his own mother wouldn’t even know him.
Amazing.
Blinds shut. A constant pale gray light in the room.
The apartment was small-two rooms and a kitchen. There was a narrow bed with no sheets in the bedroom. Jorge thought they’d have that kind of stuff in the retirement home, but they seemed to have emptied every drawer when they picked up the old lady. The living room had a couch, a TV, a rug, and a dark wood coffee table in it. There was a yellow glass lamp suspended from the ceiling. The bookshelves were filled with family photos, postcards from Chile, and books. Mostly in Spanish. He caught himself wondering if she’d had a family. Tried to check out the postcards. Read a few. Got bored after a while. The Asics shoes hadn’t cut it. His foot still hurt. It might be sprained.