The Demon of Dakar

by Kjell Eriksson

  The post office gal seemed perky and alert. Tessie had praised her. Slobodan had increased Tessie’s salary by three kronor an hour for the extra work she was taking on. If the post office gal kept at it he would raise her salary as well. Then Dakar would have a solid service team that could be supplemented with extras.

  Slobodan’s mood improved and he waved Jonas over.

  “Get me a grappa and offer Lorenzo Wader, or whatever the hell his name is, a cognac.”

  Jonas sent a snifter sliding across the counter. Lorenzo looked up with surprise, glanced at Slobodan, raised the glass and smiled. Slobodan nodded, but without returning the smile. Lorenzo was a new acquaintance. Slobodan believed he was in the illegal gambling business. Perhaps he was checking out the scene in Uppsala in preparations for a foray into this market. Not that Slobodan had anything against this. It would very likely be good for business.

  Slobodan had the impression that Armas and Lorenzo knew each other from before, or at least that Armas had heard of this well-dressed crook—for a crook he undoubtedly was, Slobodan was sure of it. But Armas denied having ever laid eyes on Lorenzo before.

  Slobodan turned his body slightly so he could study Lorenzo more closely. It was difficult to pinpoint his age. Between forty-five and fifty, but he could also be ten years older. A well-dressed scoundrel with money and a certain measure of style, Slobodan decided. He had never heard Lorenzo raise his voice, had actually never heard him speak, and that was a testament to his style, in Slobodan’s opinion. He hated loudmouths, who allowed their voices to dominate a room. Lorenzo was a man who comported himself without fuss. He had dined here a few times, but mostly spent his time in the bar, always started with a Staropramen, thereafter ordered a double espresso and a cognac and smoked a cigar.

  He always arrived alone but was often joined by a man Slobodan assumed was a subordinate. The man, barely thirty and very pale, always listened attentively to Lorenzo, but rarely offered his own comments. He always drank rum and Coke, which according to Slobodan was the most unimaginative drink that could be served, often excused himself to go to the men’s room and often remained at the bar for a while after Lorenzo left. Then he relaxed, ordered another rum and Coke, and savored a cigarette or two.

  Lorenzo twisted his neck and met Slobodan’s gaze, nodded and smiled. Slobodan slipped off his bar stool and walked over to Lorenzo, who pulled out a chair and made a gesture of invitation.

  “Thank you,” he said and gave Slobodan a new smile.

  Slobodan nodded and scrutinized his guest a little further. Lorenzo had dark brown eyes and a small white scar between his eyebrows. His hands were unusually small and gave Slobodan the impression that Lorenzo had them manicured regularly. He gave an almost feminine impression, smiled in a relaxed manner, and there were no questions in his eyes, no anxiety, only a touch of mischief and mockery.

  “Is everything to your satisfaction?”

  “It feels like home,” Lorenzo answered.

  Slobodan stretched his hand across the table and introduced himself. After the eyes, he judged people most by their handshake. Lorenzo’s was quick but a little too dainty for Slobodan’s taste. His hand was cold.

  “I haven’t seen Armas in a while.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “How does one define ‘know’?” Lorenzo said and his smile started to wear on Slobodan. “We had a little contact many years ago.”

  Slobodan waited.

  “In my younger days,” Lorenzo said after tasting his cognac, and something in his face revealed that he felt it was much too long ago.

  “He is away right now,” Slobodan said.

  “Vacation?”

  “Among other things.”

  “Armas is mulitfaceted,” Lorenzo said.

  Slobodan didn’t like it. He scoured his memory for when they had discussed the new guest and certainly he had made a comment about Lorenzo, but he could not recall that Armas had said anything about Lorenzo being an old acquaintance. Why would he lie about a thing like that?

  “How do you like Uppsala?”

  “A nice city,” Lorenzo said. “A good size, manageable. Good for the soul. A little calmer, but nonetheless open to possibilities.”

  He spoke in short sentences, with an imperceptible accent that Slobodan believed to be Spanish. Lorenzo leaned back and his gaze lingered on Frances as she walked by with a tray.

  “A beautiful woman,” he said and Slobodan had the impression that he included the waitress in his assessment of Uppsala. But Frances was anything but manageable, definitely not calm and open to possibilities.

  “Her husband has run away,” Slobodan said. “No one knows where he is and Frances is walking around like a loose hand grenade.”

  Slobodan wanted to get Lorenzo started, get him to talk, but the information about Frances’s husband did not alter Lorenzo’s relaxed posture and did not appear to whet his curiosity.

  “I am sure he will turn up,” he simply said, but continued to watch Frances, as if weighing his chances.

  Slobodan waved his hand and Jonas, who had learned to interpret the least little gesture of his boss, immediately poured a small glass of beer that he brought to the table.

  “I have lived in this town for a long time,” Slobodan said.

  “Yes?”

  “If you should need any assistance, I mean.”

  “And what would that be?”

  Slobodan was beginning to hate the pleasantly smiling Lorenzo and his superior attitude.

  “You tell me,” Slobodan said and smiled sardonically.

  He took a gulp of beer, stood up from the table with an excuse about unfinished paperwork, and left Lorenzo.

  The brief conversation with Lorenzo had irritated Slobodan. Above all it was the patronizing tone that bore witness to an unusual degree of arrogance. Slobodan was accustomed to being treated with a great deal more respect.

  It had also unsettled him. It was news to him that Lorenzo knew Armas from before, and it was not a good thing. Armas was his and Slobodan felt something that could be characterized as jealousy. In addition, Lorenzo was much too cocky. Slobodan had encountered this attitude many times and had never had any problems breaking the most brazen and obstinate fellow. But this man had an authority that not only testified to self-confidence but also about an ability to create problems.

  Slobodan thought about Armas. If only everything worked out on this trip to Basque. He was taking a risk in sending Armas, but there was no alternative this time. If anything went wrong and the transport failed he would lose a great deal of money and possibly lose his best friend and partner. It was in the pot and Armas knew it. Even so, he had not protested. Even he knew how much this meant.

  Slobodan had decided that they would thereafter take it easy for half a year, maybe even a year. One thing he had learned and that was not to try to bite off too much. One had to think big, but only in one’s own league. Then one could, if everything went well, eventually qualify for a higher league.

  He checked the time. If he knew Armas, then he was already in southern Sweden.

  Slobodan smiled to himself as he came to think of his time in Malmö and the “German swine.” The memory had bothered him for a long time, how he had been bullied and humiliated, but now he could think back on the whole episode with greater calm. The German had been made to pay. It did him good to think of it.

  Eighteen

  The darkness unsettled her. She tripped on roots that stuck up, a branch whipped her in the face and she stumbled. Since she had called Hugo and told him that Patrik was all right, a fear had taken root in her that he was injured or that he had injured someone else. But surely Patrik wouldn’t fight with a knife? It was an impossible thought, that her Patrik would deliberately stab someone.

  She ran straight there—or what she thought the best way was, since her fear had confused her. She felt as if she was too late.

  When she finally arrived at the community gardening area, the last ounce of
courage left her and she started to cry. Suddenly she thought of Jörgen, Patrik and Hugo’s father, and about how unfair life was.

  A shadow dislodged itself from the dark. Patrik came toward her. How big he has become, she thought.

  “Hi Mom,” he said, and she started to cry again.

  “It’s okay,” he said.

  “What is happening? I have to know! Why do you do this? Now when everything …”

  “Everything is fine, Mom. It’s only that the police have their own ideas about stuff.”

  Patrik told her what had happened the last two days and Eva was amazed at how calm he was, how clearly and methodically he proceeded from event to event.

  When he finished his story she was struck by how unreal everything was, that they were standing in a community garden in the middle of the night, with the smell of earth and with the occasional mosquito buzzing around their heads, talking about violence and a world she couldn’t imagine.

  Is this my Patrik, she thought. Is this our life? Our neighborhood?

  “Shouldn’t you tell this to the police?”“What the hell do you think?”

  Eva bounced at the hardness in his voice.

  “But if you—”

  “They won’t believe me, you know that. And Zero will go crazy, and so will his brother.”

  “But drugs, it seems so—Have you done it?”

  Patrik shook his head.

  “I don’t want to lose control,” he said.

  Eva believed him instinctively. It would be so unlike Patrik. He wanted to have control, as he said. He hated the unexpected.

  “Let’s go home,” she said, suddenly steady and grateful that he was fine.

  To her surprise, Patrik did not protest. He just stood up without a word and started to walk. She watched his silhouette.

  That is my boy, she thought again and again. That is my boy.

  When they got home Hugo and Johnny were sitting at the computer playing games. Patrik walked straight to his room and closed the door behind him.

  “Thanks for staying,” Eva said.

  “We’ve been having a good time,” Johnny said. “Isn’t that right, Hugo?”

  The boy nodded while he concentrated on the game.

  “Would you like anything before going home?”

  Johnny shook his head. Despite the late hour he did not feel tired. In fact, he felt the opposite. The trip to Eva’s had livened him up. His own apartment held no attraction for him, but he realized he should get up and leave them in peace.

  “We’ve had a good time,” he repeated. “Did you find out what had happened?”

  “Not really,” Eva said. “We’ll see tomorrow. I think Patrik has to spend some time alone and think it out.”

  “Are you going to the police?”

  “I’ll probably call them tomorrow. We’ll see.”

  Eva sat down on Hugo’s bed.

  “You should get some rest,” Johnny said.

  Johnny drove home with mixed feelings. Other peoples’ problems were nothing he needed and now he had fallen into one. He didn’t want to be pulled in and Eva had not made any further attempt to do so. He was grateful for that. He would not have had the energy to stay all night and comfort her.

  At the same time he felt uplifted. He had done something for another human being who clearly trusted him. Eva had hugged him before he left. He laughed out loud in the car.

  On the last stretch before home he thought about her. How brave of her to raise two teenagers on her own in this world.

  Nineteen

  Konrad Rosenberg was one of five sons of the infamous Karl-Åke Rosenberg, the drilling and blasting expert, of whom more or less believable stories still circulated on construction sites. Karl-Åke had set off his last load of explosives in Forsmark in 1979 and died shortly thereafter, more or less on the spot, from a heart attack, so shot through with dust and drill residue that he was indistinguishable from the rock. It was said that the body had to be cleaned with a high-pressure hose.

  With every son that Elisa Rosenberg bore, it was as if there was not quite enough material. The firstborn, Bertil, was a giant like his father, but thereafter the sons were more and more feeble. Konrad was the youngest, one hundred and fifty-seven centimeters tall, equipped with a sunken chest and shoulders that stuck out like hangers. In elementary school the other kids played the harp on his ribs and his shoe size was only thirty-eight.

  What he lacked in physique and ability, he made up for in a never-wavering optimism and a self-confidence that unfortunately often led him astray.

  At the age of seventeen he embarked on a drug addiction, and one year later he was charged by the Uppsala courts with burglary and the assault of a civil servant. He was found guilty of the burglary but the second accusation was dismissed by the court. It was regarded as unlikely that Konrad had the capacity to offer any significant resistance.

  That was the first in a long series of sentences. Most of them concerned drugs and crimes related to his drug habit, primarily fraud. He was a scoundrel, well known to the police and people in the blocks around the central station.

  During his last prison term Konrad had participated in an ambitious program to kick his drug habit, and when he was released he had against all expectations kicked his drug dependence and was provided with a small apartment in Tunabackar, on the same street where he had grown up.

  Konrad Rosenberg was forty-six years old when he was granted early retirement. He used to sit on Torbjörn Square, down a beer or two, and converse with other lushes or other retirees who were happy to have someone to talk to. Many of them had been acquainted with Konrad’s father and loved to tell the usual stories about legendary explosions.

  Sometimes he used the shuttle service to go downtown, shoplift in a couple of stores, selling the goods quickly below market value and returning home with a green bag of alcohol.

  Life was simple for Konrad. He was still optimistically cheerful and was generally regarded as a little slow but harmless, since he had never committed any violent crimes.

  One day, things looked up for Konrad Rosenberg. He appeared, in new clothes, at a bank branch on Torbjörn Square, where he opened an account and deposited fifty-six thousand kronor. The clerk, who recognized him from the park benches, could not conceal his surprise.

  “It is an inheritance,” Konrad explained somberly.

  “My condolences,” the clerk said.

  “It is all right,” Konrad said. “It’s just a distant aunt who popped off.”

  After that, smaller amounts flowed into the account, a couple of thousand from time to time, on a few occasions a five-digit amount. A couple of years after the initial deposit, the sum had grown fivefold.

  The bank clerk reminded Konrad of the possibility of a more favorable retirement savings account option that, once he had received an explanatory overview, Konrad politely declined.

  “The devil only knows how long one has to live. One could kick the bucket at any moment.”

  One day he parked a Mercedes on the street, circled the car a few times, opened and locked the doors with a remote control system, unlocked the door, sat down in the car, only to step out again immediately, lock it, walk some distance away and turn around and regard this miracle, before he finally ducked in through the front doors of the building.

  Konrad Rosenberg, as “Sture with the hat” had put it to Berglund, was in the money.

  But fortune is a curse. From his relatively problem-free existence on the square, Konrad had now been plunged into a whirlwind of new acquaintances who, like the male butterfly that can detect a female at one kilometer’s distance, appeared to be drawn to the smell of money that emanated from him.

  At first he was flattered, liked to buy rounds for his new friends and was seen more often in public. Then suddenly everything ground to a halt. Konrad Rosenberg became sullen and unwilling to play along. No more small loans, no restaurant meals, visitors were turned away at the door.

  When spring c
ame, he was again on the park bench in the square. The bank account, which had almost been emptied, was again being filled at a steady and secure rate.

  It was the summerhouse that was the source of Konrad Rosenberg’s unexpected advancement.

  In the sixties, the explosions expert Rosenberg had bought a piece of land from a local farmer about ten kilometers east of the town. On the stony property, which he spent the first summer blowing to bits, he built a large cottage of sixty square meters. In addition to a main room, where he and Elisa slept, it included a kitchen and two sleeping alcoves where the sons made do as best they could.

  After Karl-Åke died, it only took a few weeks for Elisa to pass away. Konrad was in jail and could not really look out for his interests, but was happy with the money he received. The rest of the brothers sold the apartment in the city, as well as all the furnishings, and divided the money among themselves. Bertil made off with the summerhouse, but after an attack of guilty conscience, offered it for his little brother Konrad’s use.

  Konrad had lived there during difficult times in his life, but had never really felt at home there. It was too far from the city, but it breathed of childhood. Not that the latter had been unhappy in any way and perhaps this was what created the discomfort. The house reminded Konrad dimly of the fact that there were alternatives to the life he had chosen to live.

  The neighbors were hardworking, decent types, and Konrad felt their scorn. He had renovated the house, had it repainted, replaced the woodwork, and had a new tin roof put on, but none of this helped. The neighbors continued to remain distant. What they did not know was that the summerhouse was the foundation of his renaissance. It was remote enough that it functioned as a repackaging center and did not figure on the police radar of hot spots. Konrad himself played no part in the planning of this but was nonetheless smart enough to realize the relative value of this modest house. He thought it was a lucky break that he had been recruited, but the fact was that it was the summerhouse that was of interest. Konrad was only part of the bargain.