Easy Money (23 page)

A half hour later, the postcards were all read. Seventeen in total. Camilla’d been living in Stockholm for a little over three years before she disappeared. During that time, she’d been home three times. It made Margareta sad; Bengt angry.

But apparently she’d at least been writing postcards. Cards that JW’d never seen, and that Margareta’d saved and put in Camilla’s room. Maybe she thought they belonged there, as though no other place was sufficiently holy to store the fragments of her daughter’s abridged life.

Most of it was stuff he already knew. Camilla wrote thin descriptions of life in Stockholm. She worked at a café. She hung out with the other waitresses. She lived in a studio in Södermalm—the south side—that she rented through the owner of the café. She studied at Komvux. She quit the café job and started working at a restaurant. Once, it said that she’d ridden in a Ferrari.

Not a word about Jan Brunéus.

She mentioned her boyfriend in some of the letters. He wasn’t referred to by name, but it was clear the boyfriend owned the car.

One postcard, the last one, contained information JW didn’t already know.

That was news to JW. That Camilla’d been planning to go to Belgrade. With the boyfriend.

He made the rapid calculation: Why go to Belgrade? Because you were from there.

Who was from there? The man with the Ferrari.

He was a Yugo.

Stefanovic as lecturer. He probably wasn’t familiar with the term
strategic consultant,
but if he’d worked for Ernst & Young, they would’ve been proud.

It was serious. Organized. The elite were gathered around a conference table in the VIP room on the top floor of Radovan’s bar. Radovan, Mrado, Stefanovic, Goran, and Nenad. The conversation was held in Serbian.

Mrado: responsible for the coat checks and other racketeering/blackmail/hit-man jobs.

Stefanovic: Radovan’s bodyguard and CFO.

Goran: bossed over booze and cigarette smuggling.

Nenad: biggest supplier of coke to Stockholm’s dealers, and also ran the trade in whores, apartment bordellos, and call-service chicks. Was responsible for the entire gamut of services. Nenad was Mrado’s closest among the colleagues—he saw in him the same desire he felt to be his own man. None of Goran or Stefanovic’s rimming.

The room and the bar’d been searched for hours. The cops were on the hunt. Stefanovic’d looked for any recording devices: under tables, chairs, behind lamps, under ledges. Checked civvies in the bar downstairs, suspicious cars, cameras in the windows across the street. It was the first time Radovan’s entire cadre had been together, in person, in over a year and a half.

Dangerous.

Stefanovic began ceremoniously. “Gentlemen, three months ago I was given the task of figuring out what we should do about Nova. You’re familiar with it. The Stockholm police began the project four months ago. They’ve got their sights set on us and other groups. They’ve already collared more than forty people, mostly those in the western region. Thirty are already convicted. The rest are rotting in jail while they wait to stand trial. All of us in this room appear on their list of the hundred and fifty persons who make up the core of organized crime in this city.”

Goran grinned. “Where did they get that idea?”

Stefanovic cut him off. “Funny, Goran. Are you stupid because you’re a loser, or a loser because you’re stupid?”

Goran opened his mouth, then closed it again without a word. Like a fish.

Radovan looked at him. Most of the time, Goran was his fluffer, but now he wanted seriousness. Mrado thought: One point docked for Goran.

Stefanovic took a sip of mineral water. “During the last five years, we’ve concentrated our focus on five different areas of business. Then we run some other treats on the side, as you know—freight skimming, tax stuff, et cetera. We have a total turnaround of about sixty million kronor a year. Deduct general costs from that—the price of laundering the cash and paying off the guys. Your net result is something like fifteen. Add your earnings from your own and our shared legal businesses. Clara’s, Diamond, and Q-court. The demolition firm and the video-rental stores, et cetera. You’re all co-owners in one way or another. You live well on this stuff. But the businesses work differently. The margins vary. The whore biz is rolling. The cigarettes are okay. The blow is flying. Right, Nenad? What’s the price today?”

Nenad spoke slowly. “We buy for four fifty. Sell for between nine and eleven hundred. After turnaround costs, we earn an average of four hundred per gram, given that we don’t bulk.”

“That’s good. But everything can get better. If we can zero in on the source, we can press down the prices more. And, anyway, coke is the riskiest of the businesses. You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. It’s important that we have several functioning businesses simultaneously. The risk is really high when it comes to ice. We have to be mobile, be able to switch between different areas depending on the relationship between risk and revenue.”

Radovan nodded.

Mrado wasn’t surprised about the level of the lecture. He’d talked to Stefanovic two days ago, when he’d told him the instructions Radovan’d given him: “The presentation is for professional businessmen who deal in crime. I want numbers, statistics. Background analysis, prognoses, constructive solutions. No brainless gangster chitchat.” Still, Mrado was amazed. Unusually open description of Radovan’s empire. Mrado pretty much knew what made up Radovan’s domain, sure, but this was the first time R. himself, through Stefanovic, was giving numbers in detail.

Mrado regarded the men around the table. All in first-class suits. Broad shoulders. Broad tie knots like sportscasters’. Broad smiles when they heard the numbers.

Radovan was at the head of the table. His head was tilted back, chin in the air. Gave the impression that he wanted to have an overview of the others. Concentrated, steely look on his face.

Stefanovic: unassuming appearance. Mrado knew better—he was the other half of Radovan’s brain.

Goran was sitting with his arms crossed. Almost as beefy as Mrado. Almost as bitchy as a teen with a curfew. Followed Stefanovic with his eyes. Listened and analyzed the strategy. Had a lined notebook in front of him on the table.

Nenad rocked the Stureplan look. Backslick, pinstriped suit, pink tailored shirt. Matching silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. What gave him away was the Serbian cross tattooed on his hands. The Cocaine King/Whore Boss looked like a cocaine king/whore boss. Tried to pull a laid-back attitude—drawling voice, slow movements—but he was always jittery.

Stefanovic rose. Paced back and forth. “Let me give you a quick history lesson.”

Goran took notes.

“We’ve gotten competition over the last couple of years. When they took down Jokso in 1998, many of us thought the market shares were up for grabs, that there weren’t too many contenders in the cockfight. Then came the cease-fire between the Hells Angels and the Bandidos in 2001. You remember the terms. Neither of the gangs was allowed to expand. They had territories in Malmö, Helsingborg, and in two places on the west coast. But they were smart. Instead of the main clubs growing, the hang-around clubs grew, Red & White Crew and Red Devils, X-Team and Amigos MC.
We are the people your parents warned you about,
as they like to say. Mischievous boys. Today, they’re like ants and Sweden is their hill; even Stockholm’s crawling with them. As if that wasn’t enough, the prisons’ve really revved up: Original Gangsters, the Wolfpack Brotherhood, Fucked for Life, et cetera, et cetera. At first, they were loosely knit groups of young criminals and overgrown teen fists. Today, they’re almost as well organized as the motorcycle gangs, even outside the walls. What’s more, the Russian Mafia, the Estonian crime rings, not to mention the Naser Gang—we all know them—and the fuckin’ Polacks with their illegal Benz import have cut into large parts of the market. What’s happened?”

Stefanovic stared them down, one by one. The old boys were chastened. What he’d told them wasn’t news. Even so, you could see it in their eyes, the flicker of understanding that maybe the Yugos weren’t the biggest, baddest, and most beautiful anymore. The golden age was over. They were no longer kings of the hill.

Nenad arranged a well-waxed piece of hair, smoothed it down. “I can tell you what’s happened. They’re letting too many
blattes
into this country. Fuck, first it was the Kosovo Albanians, Naser’s ugly mugs and the rest. Then all the nasty-ass Gambians—they fuckin’ own half of the heroin in this city. And this is goddamn unbelievable: The Russians are smuggling cigarettes with the Bandidos. Unholy bedfellows. Worse than Croats, Slovenians, and Americans sucking each other off. It’s sicker than what the Svens do to our import pussy. Close the borders. Deport every Eastern fuck who sits his dark-haired, drug-filled ass down on the blond side of the border.”

Stefanovic said, “There’s a lot to what you just said. But it’s not just the new immigrants who’ve created the competition. We’re seeing new alliances. New gangs. They’ve learned from us and the motorcycle gangs in the States. We’ve got certain advantages, we all come from Holy Serbia. We speak the same language, have the same habits and contacts, are unified. But today, that’s not helping. Especially not now when the peace’s been broken. There’s a new war on—and it involves us. So far, two from the Bandidos, one HA, and one OG—popped. But we’ve taken a beating too. You all know what’s happened. Two months ago, one of ours was shot, severely injured. Both the war and the Nova Project will continue if we don’t do something. I’ve been thinking about it. Radovan’s been thinking about it. Mrado and I’ve talked to some others, which you’ll hear more about in a moment. To conclude, there are a lot more players on the field than five years ago, the cease-fire’s been broken, and the police’ve strengthened their positions through this damn Nova shit. They’re pinpointing us, infiltrating us, disturbing the balance. When people within certain groups fall, other groups think it’s a free-for-all. We’re fighting, when we should be collaborating. But we have a suggestion for a solution to the problem. Mrado will tell you about that.”

Stefanovic handed out copies of a paper with a list of names on it. Pointed.

“These are the gangs that control organized crime in Stockholm. Under the name of each gang, I’ve written down what they do and where. For example, you can see here that the Hells Angels run coat checks all over the city, do some drug dealing, primarily in the southern boroughs, import precursors, run automatic gambling machines all over the city, and do protection racketeering. All you gotta do is compare. Who’s in the same business we’re in and where’re they doing it. I’m about to hand the show over to Mrado. He’s already been in touch with some of the gangs on the list. Discussed the solution.”

Goran leaned across the table, as if he didn’t think the others would hear otherwise. “I honestly don’t see why we gotta find a solution. I don’t see a problem, since I’ve got total control over my business. If someone else’s got a problem, they should have to solve it on their own.”

Clear message directed at Mrado and Nenad: You’re not handling your job.

Stefanovic supported himself with both his hands on the table. The sleeves of his suit jacket slipped down over his cuffs and cuff links, which were in the shape of mini revolvers. He leaned over the table, mimicked Goran.

“You’re missing the point, Goran. We’re in this together. We consider and analyze what’s best for Radovan and for us. Not just for you. If you haven’t understood that by now, you’re welcome to discuss the matter with Rado in private. End of story.”

The second time today that Goran’d stepped out of line. The second time he’d gotten his fingers smacked. How much crap would Rado take?

Radovan remained calm. Gaze glued on Goran. Power play.

Goran stared back for a microsecond, then nodded.

Mrado cleared his throat. He’d prepared tonight’s talk ahead of time. Some parts were hot; Goran might freak out again.

“As Stefanovic was saying, I’ve been in touch with some of the groups. Among them, the Hells Angels and the Original Gangsters. And we’ve come up with the solution; it’s all about dividing up the market. Dividing up the different areas we work between us. The groups work differently. The HA are a lot more organized than the OG. On the other hand, the OG are ready to take bigger risks and have better connections in the outer boroughs. You can take a look at Stefanovic’s handout to see what they’re doing. The HA compete with us over coat checks, cocaine, and booze smuggling. They’re bigger than us at racketeering and gambling machines. The OG do cocaine and some racketeering and different loosely planned CIT hits. My assessment is that the OG aren’t a direct threat to our business. We could basically give a fuck about them. But they might, for example, be in competition with other groups that, in turn, compete for the same markets we do. We get a domino effect. The Hells Angels, for instance, are ready to discuss a division regarding either the booze import or the coat checks. Stefanovic and I are gonna look into it further. I’m gonna meet up with more people and hear what can be done. The Gambians, the Bandidos, the Wolfpack Brotherhood, and others. The point is that we have to fortify the front against this Nova shit and end the war. You know as well as I do that no one wants to be called a canary, but in a war, the whole sky fills with birdsong. Rat people out rather than rub ’em out, man to man. The Nova Project gains from everyone being at war with everyone else.”

Mrado continued to explain. Described the gangs. The rings that divided and ruled the city. Unholy alliances and kinship. Ethnic, racial, and geographic groupings.

The men sat in silence. No one wanted to give up their market. At the same time, everyone understood the problem. Most of all, no one wanted to fight with Radovan.

Mrado thought about the mood he’d sensed earlier. Rado wasn’t totally pleased. After this run-through, Radovan’s attitude toward him ought to improve. Mrado’d begun a huge job with the market division.

He wrapped up his lecture.

Radovan thanked Stefanovic and Mrado.

Everyone turned their cells back on.

A few minutes of small talk.

Goran excused himself. Said he had to go.

Rado looked satisfied. “Thanks for coming. I think this could be the beginning of something new, something big. You can go now if you want. Personally, I’d planned on enjoying myself tonight.”

The doors to the room swung open. Two girls in short skirts rolled in a booze cart. Poured out drinks.

They sang Serbian drinking songs.

Nenad pinched one of the girls on the butt.

Rado laughed.

Food was brought in.

Mrado almost forgot his feelings toward Radovan.

It was gonna be a long night.

***

MEMORANDUM

(Confidential, pursuant to chapter 9, paragraph 12 of the Secrecy Act.)

PROJECT NOVA

COUNTY CRIMINAL POLICE INITIATIVE AGAINST ORGANIZED CRIME

Balkan-related crime in Stockholm

The following memorandum is based on reports and suspicions from the Special Gang Commission and the Norrmalm police’s Financial Crime Investigation Unit in collaboration with the Unified County Effort Against Organized Crime in the Stockholm Area (collectively referred to below as the Surveillance Group). The methods employed include mapping, with the help of the combined experience of the Stockholm police; the collection of information from people within the criminal networks, so-called rats; secret wiretapping and bugging; as well as the coordination of requisite registries. The memorandum is being presented due to the fact that new information has been gathered from a person (X) who is currently convicted and incarcerated and who was previously active within the networks described below and also noted internal conflicts within the Yugoslavian network’s leadership.