The Little Old Lady Behaving Badly

by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

  “What’s going on?” she demanded.

  “Some stuff fell by the wayside,” said Brains pathetically and pointed at a few banknotes and a gold bar on the ground. “I think there’s even a little under the truck too.”

  “I’ll fix that. I’ll park the truck on the slope,” said Rake, ever ready to show his skills. “We men know about such things and we’re used to heavy vehicles.”

  “Well, fine, then, but I’d better get rid of that rotten herring first,” said Martha, opening the door and lifting out the bag with the stinking fish.

  “Oh hell, we’ll never get rid of that stench!” mumbled Rake. He squeezed his nose but only got a piece of latex in his hand. Muttering to himself, he climbed up into the driver’s seat, looked around him, and had just started to back out the vehicle when Martha knocked on the windshield.

  “The pipe, Rake, retract it first.”

  “Was just about to do that,” he said with his face growing red, then he did as she said and drove up the slope where he parked in their neighbor’s private parking space. The stinking-rich neighbor was on a round-the-world trip, so they didn’t have to worry about him. Nor his garden either. He had contracted the garden upkeep to a company that had since gone bankrupt, but the League of Pensioners had kept quiet about that. They enjoyed not having to hear the sound of the lawnmowers, trimmers and other machines that were so common in Djursholm. As far as they were concerned, they would be happy to see the garden turn into a jungle!

  Rake got out and when he came back to the house he picked up a gold bar and the remains of a stamp album from the ground, but he couldn’t find anything more. He went in to join the others.

  They had hardly got inside the trash room in the cellar before they all broke out in wild cheering. On the floor lay gold bars and bundles of banknotes all higgledy-piggledy, and Anna-Greta rushed forward in a state of ecstasy. She beamed with delight as she waved one of the bundles as if she was fanning herself with a fan of feathers.

  “Aaah,” she sighed, and closed her eyes.

  “But there is such a mess here,” said Martha, horrified. “What if somebody comes. We’d better hide everything right away.”

  “Nonsense, there aren’t any police in Djursholm, just swindlers and big finance crooks,” Anna-Greta giggled, virtually drunk with delight, and she threw some bundles into the air. “Aaah,” she joyfully exclaimed yet again, bending down and sniffing the money. “Mind you, it doesn’t exactly smell like money, more like rotten fish.”

  “No, that’s right. Cleaning stained notes after a bank robbery is one thing, I can do that, but getting rid of the stench of rotten fish? God knows if I can manage that!” muttered Brains who had finally taken off his Pavarotti mask.

  “Now listen to me! We have to get serious; we can’t make the same mistake as other robbers. We must cover our tracks. And do it properly!” urged Martha.

  “Yes, right. But we’ll never get rid of the smell,” said Anna-Greta, holding a bundle of banknotes at arm’s length. “I know, we can send a press release to the papers and call this the Stink Robbery,” she went on, before breaking out into such a neighing that Christina had to give her a kick on her shins.

  “Pull yourself together, Anna-Greta, we mustn’t make a fool of ourselves.”

  And just as she uttered those words, a strange sound could be heard from somewhere above. There was a bit of squeaking, thumping and a banging on the ground, and the noise was getting louder. Indeed, it sounded as if something was coming down the slope. And it wasn’t a car or a motorbike, but something much heavier. And the closer it came, the stronger the stench of rotten herring.

  “Oh no, my God, I do believe . . .” Martha managed to utter before they all rushed to the door. They got out just in time to see the garbage truck smash through the bushes, bump down the steps and start sinking in the neighbor’s pool. Big bubbles came up to the surface and there was a plopping and slurping sound while the truck settled slowly to the bottom. Then all was silent.

  “Goodness gracious me!” said Christina, pressing her hands over her face in shock.

  “A garbage truck in a swimming pool, that’s something I’ve never seen before,” Brains announced.

  “Well, at least it will be clean now,” mumbled Martha.

  “And it won’t smell either,” Anna-Greta added.

  Rake didn’t say anything, he just stared. He had pulled up the handbrake, of course he had done that, but perhaps he’d forgotten to put the truck in gear . . . ? Or something like that.

  “What were you saying, Rake, about you men being accustomed to heavy vehicles?” Martha wondered.

  “Yes, perhaps you also know how to drive them out of a swimming pool?” Christina chipped in with a little giggle. Then everyone turned silent and they all looked glumly at the truck that had crushed the bushes, smashed the security fence and filled the entire swimming pool. Up on the roof of the truck you could see a branch from a lilac bush and a dandelion leaf.

  “Lucky for us that our neighbor had such a deep pool,” said Martha in an attempt to be positive.

  “I won’t contradict you on that,” said Rake, trying to straighten up the remains of a gooseberry bush. “He tested diving apparatus there for his adventure trips.”

  “And have you thought of something? We really have been rather lucky. Nobody will go looking for a garbage truck in a swimming pool,” Martha went on.

  “Nope, I’ll grant you that,” said Rake, immediately feeling in somewhat better spirits. “But it is clearly visible there in the water.”

  “That’s true, but there ought to be a remedy for that, there always is,” said Brains. “I bet you that our neighbor has a powered pool cover.”

  Brains looked around and caught sight of the little shed next to the pool. He picked the lock and disappeared inside. Shortly afterwards, the sound of a little motor starting up could be heard. Slowly the pool cover extended across the surface and soon it had covered the entire pool. There was no sign of the truck!

  “Neat, isn’t it?” Brains turned off the motor, unscrewed a few screws and pulled out one of the cables in the control panel. “Now nobody will be able to remove the pool cover in a hurry. That gives us a little time to contemplate the situation.”

  “Yes, we’re going to need that,” said Martha.

  3

  A BANK ROBBERY IS LIKE BEING HIGH ON COCAINE, MARTHA thought—but with only a very vague grasp of what being high on cocaine really involved. She was sticky with sweat, must have tossed and turned in her bed at least a hundred times, and the sheets were twisted like the stripes on a piece of sticky rock candy. Her brain was spinning at top speed and time after time she went over the bank robbery hunting for any mistakes they might have made. She didn’t think they had left any tracks, or had they? And then there was that incident with the garbage truck. She had let Brains park it so that he would feel like a real man, and then it had all gone wrong—if you were a bank robber, you shouldn’t get soft and sentimental and think of others, no, a robbery was a robber’s job, and as such a job that had to be done in a professional manner; it was as simple as that! Mind you, it had all turned out OK in the end. If the police made a connection between the garbage truck and the bank robbery, it wouldn’t help them very much. They could check however many truck depots they wanted and not find anything. But a garbage truck in a swimming pool! She couldn’t have thought up anything better herself . . .

  Martha and her friends hadn’t had the energy to go through all the booty right away, but had first taken a power nap. A little snooze simply helped clear your brain before you started counting money. And then they had to celebrate. No robbery without champagne—or, at the very least, some exciting liqueur. Martha yawned, got up and pulled out a pen and paper. As soon as they had sorted and hidden the loot, they would have to decide how they were going to give away their Robin Hood money. Martha drew up a things-to-do list and then slowly got dressed. Then she took the pen and notepad and went down the stairs a
nd into the kitchen. It was high time for a meeting.

  Before long, Martha and her friends were sitting, each with a cup of coffee, around the big oak table in the cellar. The little gable window was covered with black cloth and the lights were turned on. A heavy stench of rotten herring seemed to have settled in the room and now and then deep yawns could be heard. They were all tired and would have liked to have snoozed a bit longer, but the stolen millions had to be dealt with as soon as possible. Besides which they must solve the problem of the truck in the swimming pool. To their great fortune, not only was their grumpy neighbor not in residence, but all the other neighbors were away too. And nobody seemed to have noticed what had happened. The lilac bushes and the rest of the overgrown garden hid most of the tracks, and when the League of Pensioners had tidied up a bit, it didn’t really look much different to any other neglected garden. But still. It only needed one person to become curious and want to peek under the pool cover. And besides, there was a stench of rotten herring in the whole house. As Brains put it: the smell of fermented herring is like bills. Not something you can get rid of just like that.

  “Five gold bars, tons of bundles of banknotes, three collections of coins and a collection of stamps. Not bad, not bad at all.” Anna-Greta’s slightly bureaucratic tone of voice echoed around the downstairs hideaway. She sounded unusually bright and joyful.

  “But those banknotes. The authorities will have the numbers, won’t they? They are so incredibly strict at the currency exchanges nowadays,” said Christina rather timidly. Her religious upbringing in Jönköping, the heart of the Swedish bible belt, still made itself felt and she found it hard to get used to bank robberies. And when they had to deal with the booty, well, that caused her even more angst. She felt ashamed, like a crook, and she was always worried that they would get caught.

  “We can buy RVs, luxury vehicles and other stuff on the Internet,” Rake proposed and put a calming arm around her shoulder.

  “But what if they’re stolen, then it would be a criminal offence: receiving stolen goods.” Christina shook her head.

  “No, of course, we should steer clear of anything illegal like that,” Martha announced and gave the others a strict look.

  “Then I guess you’re in the wrong line of business,” said Rake.

  “But the whole point of our crimes is to spread joy,” she insisted.

  “Not so sure that everyone would agree.”

  The League of Pensioners clinked their coffee cups together, helped themselves to the wafers and contemplated the heap of valuables on the floor. Now and then, they shifted the bundles of banknotes as if weighing up what they could be used for. Anna-Greta thumbed through the banknotes and looked thoughtful. Then she suddenly stopped and a broad smile stretched across her face.

  “You know what? I’ve had a brilliant idea,” she exclaimed, and you could hear a merry clucking gradually transforming into a jolly horselike neigh before she managed to stop herself at the last moment. “We start a company, buy an old people’s home or a school with the money from the bank robbery, then quickly sell the company and transfer the profit to the West Indies.”

  “Not like those greedy venture capitalists, surely!” Christina shouted.

  “Stop and explain yourself! We are not going to make a profit on the elderly and schools. We’re going to give away the money, don’t forget that,” Martha protested.

  “Yes, but that’s precisely what we would be doing. Giving it away!” Anna-Greta insisted, as she nonchalantly pushed her long gray hair behind her ears and sat up straight. Smiling, she looked at her friends. “Profit-making companies within schools, health care and other social fields transfer enormous amounts of money out of Sweden without paying tax, and the government has no control of this at all!” Her cheeks glowed red with excitement. “And we don’t even have to plunder a company first, we already have the money! We just send it to the Caribbean, start a company there and then transfer the money back home again without paying tax. That way the money will grow!”

  “But who the hell pays tax on money they have robbed?” asked Rake, perplexed.

  This was followed by silence for a remarkably long period and they all looked at each other, a little embarrassed—until Anna-Greta sat up straight, looked around at them and cracked her neck.

  “Don’t you get it? We launder the money over there in the Caribbean and then we can hand out even more money to the poor.”

  This was a bit difficult for the members of the League of Pensioners to follow, and Anna-Greta had to go on to explain how they, with the help of a lawyer, could arrange the whole thing.

  “And the more companies we start, the harder it will be for the authorities to work out what we’re up to,” she said.

  “I think it ought to suffice with one company; wouldn’t that be enough?” said Brains, who didn’t want to complicate life unnecessarily. He wanted to work on his lathe, do his carpentry and busy himself with his inventions. Not play fancy tricks with money.

  “We must have two companies, one in the West Indies and one in Sweden. Then we get a Visa card for the Swedish company and we can get at the money right away.” Anna-Greta’s eyes glimmered with delight.

  “In one of those hole-in-the-wall machines, you mean?” asked Rake, wide-eyed.

  “Yes, yes, that’s right. Then the company in the West Indies can lend money to our company in Sweden, and charge an extortionate interest rate so that we have an enormous loss. There wouldn’t be any tax at all to pay, and we would get even richer. Just like the multimillionaires.”

  “But Lord above, why should we bother with all that? Can’t we just do some good instead?” Brains broke in.

  “Absolutely. That financial circus is not for us. We shall pay tax in Sweden, otherwise we aren’t the slightest bit better than the usual crooked businessmen,” said Martha.

  “That’s quite right. Tax is necessary for society to function,” Christina added, pulling out her nail file and starting to carefully file her nails. She hadn’t polished them for two days and it was high time to take care of them. “And if you are rich, that is—you’ll have to excuse me if I haven’t really understood this, but if you have lots of money, then you can afford to pay tax, can’t you? So why don’t people do so?” she asked.

  Sucks and ums and ers could be heard from all while they reflected on the powerful world of finance. Evidently loads of billions were swirling around in cyberspace and they never seemed to reach the people who really needed them, while at the same time the banks lent fictive money they didn’t have. No wonder it was hard to understand. In the end, Martha held up her hands in a decisive gesture.

  “Anna-Greta, instead of dribbling hither and thither with our capital, I want to know how we can share our bank robbery money as quickly as possible.”

  “As soon as I can get hold of a good lawyer, I’ll ask him to make monthly payments to the City Mission for their charity work. We can do that, because in the Caribbean our account will be kept secret and nobody will know where the money comes from.”

  They all thought that was a good idea and nodded in agreement, but sighed at the same time over the fact that they had so little money to give away. Nowadays so many people needed help to get by. The low-paid working in health care, people with only the lowest state pension, schools, old people’s homes, cultural organizations . . . the League of Pensioners would really have to get to work to manage all this. Besides, there was something else to think of. Martha pulled out her knitting. It was all very well giving money to those in need, but an unfortunate characteristic of money was that it disappeared, she thought. While the members of the League of Pensioners were still able and active, they ought to create something that would last. Something that would bring joy even after they themselves were dead: the Pleasure Village, the dream of a place for the elderly.

  She shut her eyes and saw a gang of happy seniors in front of a swimming pool. Some others sat in the bar cosseted in comfortable armchairs with umbrella
drinks in their hands, while others again were busying themselves with gardening in one of the senior center’s many greenhouses. A theater group performed Arsenic and Old Lace up on the stage and from the boules pitch you could hear chatter and joyful laughter. What a marvellous vision . . .

  “Your knitting!” Brains exclaimed, saving it just as the whole thing was about to fall to the floor.

  “Thank you,” mumbled Martha fumbling with the stitches. The problem was that the Pleasure Village or the Panther Nest would certainly cost lots and lots, much more than one of those huge sports arenas that the politicians built to keep on good terms with the building industry. But of course they wouldn’t have to build the whole village all at once; rather, they could start with a spa or a restaurant. A few hundred million kronor, that was all. Martha fingered the half-finished scarf, raised her eyebrows and tried to focus her thoughts. If lots of puppylike twenty-five-year-olds from the Business School could get rich, then surely five adventurous seniors could also succeed?

  “You know what? We have lots to do. If we are going to give away eighteen million, or however much we managed to haul in, then we must get to work.”

  “Pah, that’s easy. Give them to the state and then they’ll disappear without a trace before you know it!” said Rake.

  “Regardless, we’re going to need to hide everything we’ve stolen,” Brains commented, and the others agreed with him. They quickly made a joint effort to stuff the booty into dirty pillowcases and duvet covers which they then pushed into three laundry baskets together with the rest of the dirty laundry. On top they put Rake’s and Brains’s unwashed underpants, after which they threw the Pavarotti, Thatcher and Elton John masks into the oil-fired burner. When they were done, Rake fetched the champagne and five glasses.

  “And now we shall celebrate too, right?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Martha and she nodded to Rake. He handed out the champagne glasses and with a slight bow filled them. “Cheers and thanks to everyone!” said Martha, raising her glass.