Easy Money

by Jens Lapidus

  Jorge and Darko kept walking along Vasagatan at a leisurely pace. Past the Central Station. The taxis in line. Jorge asked, “Who were the contact people?”

  “No idea. But we drove the girls all the way here. Wouldn’t let ’em out even once. It was hot as hell that summer. When we drove through Germany, the thermometer showed over ninety-seven degrees. Fuck knows how they survived the trip. Thirty hours in seventy cubic feet-suck on that. At least they had water. We unloaded them in the harbor at Södra Hammarbyhamnen, which was an undeveloped industrial area at that time. I can still see their faces when they came outta those containers-puffy from crying, a dark gray color. Bags under their eyes that added twenty years. If I’d only known ahead of time what I’d be carrying, fuck. I could’ve said no. But they had water.”

  Jorge ignored Darko’s remorse. Right now, it didn’t matter if the whores’d had water or not. He asked, “Who met you?”

  “Radovan, Nenad, Stefanovic, and a couple others.”

  “Radovan?”

  “Yeah. I recognized him from pictures I’d seen at Café Ogo.”

  “You sure?”

  “As sure as I am that it wasn’t H I was driving that time.”

  “Who were the others?”

  “No clue who the others were, other than Nenad and Stefanovic. Sorry.”

  “How much did you get?”

  “Hundred and fifty each. To cover everything. Including bribes and salaries for the drivers.”

  Jorge with a fire inside.

  So hot.

  Hate.

  A lead.

  Radovan-wading in the whore trench.

  Jorge picked up the chase.

  32

  JW’s luxury problem: He’d put away 300,000 kronor in three months and still been able to consume like an oil sheik-what to do with all the money?

  It would soon be time for the Beamer. Maybe in a month. Maybe in two. Probably a used one after all. He was choosing between a slick BMW 330Ci with M sport pack from ’03, an even slicker BMW 330 cab with navi from ’04, and, slickest of them all, a BMW Z4 2.5i. He was eyeing the last-named car online. It was ill, silver with leather interior, and made zero to sixty in five seconds. Cash car. Class car. Cavalier car for the incomparable. It was soooo him.

  Faced the classic caveat for off-the-bookers. On paper, JW didn’t make any money and lived, according to Big Brother’s records, on student loans-a total of 7,500 kronor a month. The car had to be registered and insured. As a result, Big Brother would see that he’d bought a car for three hundred G’s, even though he didn’t report any income or assets. Big Brother would wonder. Worst-case scenario: Big Brother would get suspicious, start eyeing JW more closely.

  The standard solution for naughty off-the-bookers was to launder the dirty money.

  JW did some research. These economic models weren’t the most openly written about. Hard to find info. He asked Abdulkarim about smart ways to do it.

  The Arab responded, “JW, man, you know, me, I’m no economist. Me, I’m a regular blatte. Sweden don’t trust me anyway. I don’t need clean cash. I’m outside all that.”

  JW tried to explain the advantages of being good with the system.

  Abdulkarim offered a crooked smile. “You comin’ to London ’cause you’re my economist. You do the thinking. You come up with a smart way-you tell me. In that case, I’ll wash ten percent.”

  The Arab had a point: One alternative was to stay completely outside the system. Not register any cars, not insure any cars, not buy any co-ops, always pay cash.

  But that wasn’t JW’s way. He wanted in-for real.

  Three days after he came home from Robertsfors, JW asked himself, What do I have with me from that place? The easy answer: nothing. But still, deep inside, he knew that it’d felt good to be there. Felt good to be safe. Not have to pretend. Be able to speak with his regular dialect again. Be able to walk around in any crappy old threads. Be able to lie on his bed all day without having to call people and ask them what was happening that night.

  At the same time, he felt contempt. His parents were clueless. Where he came from-it just didn’t cut it.

  And he’d brought a new lead home with him: Camilla’s guy’d been a Yugo. What did that mean? That was probably information he should give to the police.

  But were the police finding anything? JW’d provided them with the Jan Brunéus story, the teacher who’d obviously used his sister. Why didn’t they call? Didn’t they give a fuck about the Westlund family’s anxiety and grief?

  At the same time, it was such a relief to have handed it all over to the police. He could do other things. He couldn’t let Camilla take too much of his concentration; he had to focus on his career.

  JW learned about money laundering. The key to success was moving money from one economic system to another. Moving from dirty to clean areas of business. Moving in a cycle. Moving in three vital steps: placement, concealment, laundry. Without them, the circle wasn’t complete.

  Placement was necessary since you were dealing in cash. No C sales, no matter how posh the people, happened through any other payment method. Catchy phrase: Cash is king for cocaine consumers. The advantage of cash: left no trace. The disadvantage: It was suspicious. People raised their eyebrows at fat rolls of big bills. The cash had to be moved. Placed. Converted. Into another currency, into electronic ones and zeros in a bank account, into stocks, options, or other financial instruments. Into something that didn’t attract attention, that wasn’t easy to maneuver, that was one step away from your illegal source of income.

  The second move was all about concealment. Use businesses as a front or use other methods that would conceal the source of income: bank accounts in countries with good confidentiality policies. You had to break the chain. Create layers of transactions. Couldn’t show where the money’d come from. Use decoys. Use numbered accounts. Use systems that cut your connection to the sweet sums.

  The final move was the most important; it regarded the actual laundering, the reintegration of the money into your finances. When the cash’d been placed, been put into accounts, the money concealed and impossible to trace back to you, it was time for the final step-the focus on where it’d come from, the creation of a chimera of legitimate sources. Often taxed sources. Normal sources.

  Money laundering forced you to play by the rules of the state. You lost the sweet flexibility of cold, hard cash. Entered it into the financial system, where everything was meticulously regulated. All information was saved. All assets were checked off on lists. Every move was registered. No assets arise out of thin air. But it’s possible to fake it.

  You want to do some laundry. You want to break the chain. At the same time, you want to create a good-looking chain to show the authorities. There are two alternatives. One, you put the money somewhere where the confidentiality laws stop Big Brother’s investigations in their tracks. The answer to probing questions: There is a registered transaction, but, unfortunately, there is no authority to release it. Or you use the system itself to create a trail. The answer you offer Big Brother: Of course there’s a registered transaction. Look here.

  The whole thing demanded preparation. JW was going to get that BMW, no question about it. Registered and insured. Time was of the essence. He wanted to get going right away.

  A week later, he’d bought three shelf companies online for six thousand kronor each. Registered himself as a director. One was an events-marketing company; the other two dealt in antiques. Perfect. He placed share capital of one hundred thousand in each company by creating promissory notes. He made himself the debtor-a way to avoid actually investing any real money. He wrote up a hiring contract with himself in the events-marketing firm. Finally, he named the companies: JW Empire Antiques I, Ltd., JW Empire Antiques II, Ltd., and JW Consulting, Ltd. Sounded professional enough.

  He got in touch with people in London, friends of Fredrik and Putte who studied at the London School of Economics. Creamy kids whose parents dropped 100,000 kr
onor per semester for a fine education. They knew others there who were already working, investment bankers. JW made calls. Nasal upper-class voices on the other end of the line. Guys who worked day and night and tried to legitimize their own self-image. He always referred to the guys he’d gotten their names from. That opened doors. Led to new names. Brits, Indians, Italians. Half the world worked in London.

  Finally, after four days of calling London-his phone bill would probably land upward of three grand-he was able to speak to a man at the Central Union Bank, Isle of Man. A tax paradise with one huge advantage: bank secrecy. Perfect.

  They agreed to meet during the same week that JW was in London with Abdulkarim.

  That night, JW was going to have dinner with Sophie at Aubergine on Linnégatan.

  He was at home in his room, surfing the Web. Drooling over buyable gadgets. Überhot cars. Used Excel to calculate his own purchases as of late. New sales methods. Cash-flow analysis. Laundering advantages.

  Shut down the computer.

  Got up. It was time to see Sophie. JW rocked his usual look: Gucci jeans, loafers, blue striped Pal Zileri shirt with double cuffs. He put on the cashmere coat.

  Walked toward Aubergine. Dirty snow lined the streets. His shoes were more slippery than a banana dipped in K-Y. He saw Sophie through the window. She always looked good, always. But you couldn’t appreciate it 100 percent while she was sitting down. When he walked in, she stood up. Her hotness hit him in the face like a rock-hard right jab. Shit, she was fine.

  She was wearing tight blue jeans, Sass & Bide, pointy black shoes, and a low-cut black top, probably from the Nathalie Schuterman boutique on Birger Jarlsgatan. Sophie was a regular.

  He winked, fake-flirted with her.

  She smiled. They hugged. A quick kiss.

  JW sat down. Ordered a beer. Sophie was already nursing a glass of red.

  The restaurant was shaped like an L. The windows were big. The black lacquered tables discreet. The bar was located in the corner of the L. Intricate iron structures suspended from the ceiling served as lamps, casting a soft light over the room.

  The clientele consisted of lawyers and finance guys grabbing an after-work beer, club-scene gals pouting over preparty cocktails, and Östermalm couples out for dinner, tête-à-tête.

  They ordered food.

  JW put his arm around Sophie.

  She sipped her wine. “You look tired.”

  Sometimes she had a way about her that made him nervous. When she fixed her gaze, she never looked away.

  “I don’t think I’ve been sleeping enough.”

  “But last week you told me you were tired ’cause you’d been sleeping too much. You’d slept till three in the afternoon. Is that a record for you?”

  JW ran his finger along the frosted beer glass. “I don’t think so. That was the weekend I got back from Mom and Dad’s. You get drowsy from sleeping too much. I relaxed too much at their house.”

  “That stuff’s so weird. There’s, like, always a reason to be tired. Can be totally opposing things. Kind of messed up, when you think about it. You’re tired ’cause you’ve slept too little, or too much, from the winter darkness, or from the spring light. People say you get tired from vegging out one day or from being too active another.”

  “It’s true. Everyone wants an excuse to be tired. Tired ’cause you had a hard workout at the gym or ’cause you bent your mind all out of shape for an exam. Tired ’cause it’s too hot or ’cause the cold takes it out of you. People always have a reason to be tired. But I know why I’m, like, falling asleep right now. I went out last night.”

  JW kept talking. About his night out. About his buddies’ crazy antics. About the snort rush. Babbled on. Sophie was a good listener, asked follow-up question at the right pauses, nodded in the right places, laughed at the right jokes. Sophie knew part of the true story-she knew that JW dealt to the boyz-but she didn’t know the scale of it. Not by a long stretch.

  Sophie leaned back. They were quiet for a moment. Eavesdropped on the conversation at the table next to them.

  Finally she asked, “What other friends do you have besides the boys?”

  In JW’s head: process of analysis in turbogear. Fumbled for false phrases. What the fuck was he gonna say? That the boyz were his only friends-appear like someone with few friends. Make up other friends? Like Casper. No, he couldn’t keep more lies straight in his head. The answer: compromise, tell her half the story.

  “I hang out with another group sometimes. You’re gonna laugh.”

  “Why would I laugh?”

  “’Cause they’re, like, blatte guys, sort of.”

  “Blatte guys?” Honest surprise.

  “Kind of, yeah. We party, work out. Chill.” JW felt a need to explain himself. “They’re cool, actually.”

  “I would never have expected that of you. Sometimes I wonder how well we really know each other. When do I get to meet them?”

  A miscalculation. JW hadn’t thought she’d want to get involved. Usually she didn’t take much of an interest in people outside her immediate circle. Now she suddenly wanted to meet Abdulkarim, Fahdi, and Jorge.

  A joke, or what?

  JW made an effort. Had to maintain the mask. He said, “Maybe. Sometime.” His need to change the subject got desperate. He started talking about Sophie instead. That usually worked.

  Brought up her relationship with Anna and other Lundsberg chicks. Relationship talk. Sophie’s favorite. JW wondered if she knew what’d happened between him and her friend Anna at the rager at Lövhälla Manor. But why should she care? It was almost six months ago.

  Sophie reminded him of Camilla. It was frightening.

  Camilla was like Sophie except for one difference-Camilla hadn’t been as savvy somehow.

  And then it hit him. It still felt like Sophie was playing a game with him, playing hard to get, maintaining a distance, and maybe it was just her way of saying that she wanted him to give her intimacy. Let down his guard. Let her in. Tell her who he really was. Tell her all he didn’t dare say. Just like Camilla’d been. Maintained a hard shell and a distance toward Mom and Dad, especially toward Bengt, when it was probably just a way to shut down because there wasn’t really any intimacy available at home. Playing hard because she didn’t dare be vulnerable. And was it that lack of intimacy that’d lured her to that fucking Jan Brunéus? JW wasn’t even sure he wanted to know.

  A couple of days later, planning for the London trip was in full swing. JW bought tickets. Booked luxury hotel rooms. Made sure they were written up on club guest lists: Chinawhite, Mayfair Club, Moore’s. Arranged for a private London guide, booked a limo for their personal use, made reservations at the sweetest restaurants, looked up the best strip joints, got in touch with scalpers for tix to Chelsea games, researched the directions to the luxury department stores and checked when they were open: Harvey Nichols, Harrods, Selfridges.

  Abdulkarim would be pleased. The only thing that irritated JW was that he didn’t know whom they were meeting and why. The only info Abdulkarim’d given him: “This is big business.”

  They often hung out at Fahdi’s. JW, Fahdi, Jorge, and Abdulkarim sometimes. Fahdi watched old Van Damme flicks and pornos. Talked about dudes he’d crushed and Evil with a capital E: USA. JW and Jorge mind-mapped their contacts and dealers. Planned new storage spots, safe turf for deals, sales strategies, and, above all, import. A massive import from Brazil was up first.

  The Chilean exuded hate and resolve. The guy had his side project, revenge against the guys who’d torn him to pieces.

  JW generally felt relaxed when he was with them. They were unaffected compared to his Stureplan buds. Somewhat B-list in their habits, but at the core they basically shared the same values as the boyz-chicks, money, living it up.

  One night at Fahdi’s he realized there were aspects to the C biz he’d been spared from dealing with.

  JW, Jorge, and Fahdi were on the couches. Had made calls to dealers and arranged drop-off spot
s.

  The TV was on in the background. Slow-motion action scenes from Mission Impossible II streamed out.

  Enjoyable, bloody kicks and punches. For Fahdi-inspiration.

  He started telling them about a guy he’d shot two years earlier.

  JW laughed at first.

  Jorge wanted to hear more.

  He asked Fahdi, “Aren’t you scared you’ll be put away?”

  Fahdi laughed and said proudly, “Me, never scared. Scared is for fags.”

  “So whattya do if the Five-Oh show up?”

  “You seen Léon?”

  “¿Qué?”

  “Don’t get it?”

  “What, you got heat at home?”

  “Habibi, obviously. You wanna see my arsenal?”

  JW was honestly curious. They followed Fahdi to his bedroom. The closet door creaked. Fahdi fumbled in the dark. Threw something on the bed. At first, JW didn’t see what it was. Then he understood. In front of him on the bed was a sawed-off shotgun, a Winchester. Double barrel. Five yellow boxes of shells of the same make as the shotgun. Two Glock pistols. One machete with duct tape around the grip. Fahdi’s face glowed with joy, like that of a happy child. “And I show you my best thing.” He leaned into the closet again. Brought out an AK-5. “Swedish military issue. Hot, yeah?”

  JW played cool. Really, he was shocked-Fahdi’s home was a veritable Eagle’s Nest. A loaded war bunker in the gray projects… with the safety off.