Life Deluxe (11 page)

Goran relaxed his grip. Natalie tore open the car door and rushed out. Dad on the gurney. An orange blanket over his body. His face, unscathed. It looked clean. Peaceful.

She raised the blanket. Blood everywhere. She searched for his hand. Found it. Goran was close behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

She leaned over. Dad’s stubble against her cheek. She listened. Heard his breathing. Faint. Wheezing. Irregular.

He was alive.

Dad was alive.

She’d been told that he was at a hospital somewhere in Stockholm. But she and Mom were not allowed to visit him. Stefanovic said that the person or persons who were out to get Radovan might be keeping their eye on them too. So it was best that they didn’t know where he was being cared for. Stefanovic used the same words over and over again:
delicate situation, a new time for the organization, aggressive competitors
. But no details—he never explained what he meant. Mom just nodded, seemed to accept everything. And Natalie didn’t want to let her herself ask the obvious question: What was actually happening?

According to Stefanovic, a bullet’d been caught in Dad’s bulletproof vest. Thank God he wore it. The second bullet’d passed right through his thigh. The third one’d busted his knee, not trashed it completely but enough to make him limp for a few weeks. The fourth bullet was the worst—it’d hit him in the shoulder, right on the seam, between the
area of his chest that was protected by the vest and the unprotected outer part. Ligaments, muscles, and nerve fibers’d been destroyed. The doctor didn’t know how long the arm would be out of function. But Stefanovic said the doctor promised he’d be fine in the end.

She was sitting in bed with her iPhone. Checking out some news app.

She’d propped up her back with a couple of small pillows that usually belonged in the armchair. She was wearing her pink velour Juicy Couture tracksuit. She didn’t bother with Facebook today. Didn’t want to be forced into some chat with so-called friends she’d never even wanted to have on there. Didn’t want to see other people’s status updates—small deceitful brag blogs with one sole purpose: to show off a happy, pleasant, nasty little life. She didn’t want to have to see any more party photos from Louise and Tove’s latest dinner or night out. She wanted to avoid all the pathetic wall threads.

But her worry was beginning to transform into something else, thoughts that burned in her mind. Whoever it was who’d shot Dad, they had to find him. Whoever it was, he had to be punished. When she thought about the shots in the parking garage, Natalie could think of only one word:
revenge
.

Mom appeared to be in a trance. She was stressed out, said there was so much that had to be taken care of. Natalie wondered whether Mom was feeling what she was feeling.

Stefanovic’d been there. During the day, he ordered workers around who were installing new alarm systems, switched out the regular glass panes in the windows for more durable materials, built new barred gates inside the front doors, and set up new surveillance cameras outside the gravel driveway, in the garage, under the roof along each long end of the house, and above the front and kitchen entrances. They’d even set up cameras on small poles out on the front lawn. Afterward Stefanovic’d walked around and inspected the work that’d been done over the past few days. He personally set up a portable alarm box in every room—like little remote controls for safety. He checked the motion sensors on the windows, the outdoor and indoor alarms that were connected directly to different security companies. And to him. The police couldn’t be trusted in this racist Sweden Democrat country.

To put it simply: Stefanovic was everywhere, all at once. Always with some important thing to do.

He even slept at the office, which was to say in Dad’s study. A foldout cot and a bag with clothes and stuff was the only thing he’d brought. For all eventualities, as he said.

The aim was to make them feel safe. But after a few days, new workers showed up and started building a room. The rec room was sectioned off with a wall, put up in a metal frame—and they installed large beams both in the ceiling and along the walls. They put in new water pipes, did the electrical wiring, dealt with safety features, and installed metal panels on the walls and floor.

“This is a safe room,” Stefanovic explained to Natalie and Mom. “We’ve reinforced the windows and the doors in the whole house so that help will have time to make it here. But if someone really wants to hurt us, if the windows don’t hold, then you need to go into this new room. It can handle a lot. It’s better than a tank.”

The fact that they were building a safe room in their house was crazy in and of itself. But there was something else: he’d said “us”—as if he were part of the family. As if he’d stepped in as the new dad.

After a few days, Stefanovic moved out and a new guy named Patrik moved in. Natalie’d met him a few times before. Patrik wasn’t a Serb—he was an ultra Sven, looked liked an oversized soccer hooligan: faded tattoos with Viking motifs and runic writing that wound its way up along his throat and neck. Patrik wore T-shirts that said
HACKETT
and
FRED PERRY
on them, Adidas sneakers, chinos, and a side part.

Normally: Natalie wouldn’t have trusted a racist pig like that for a second. But Patrik’d worked in Dad’s company and had done time in prison for him. She’d even been with Dad at the guy’s gate-out party three years ago.

Stefanovic said Patrik would live with them on a more permanent basis than he’d been doing himself. He moved into the guest room instead of the study. They set up a weapons locker and a proper wardrobe where Patrik hung up his polo shirts. He put a little flag in the window: the soccer team AIK’s emblem on one side and an image of a rat on the other, dressed in an AIK jersey.

“Patrik will be good for you,” Stefanovic said. “Until things’ve calmed down. He’s a pretty fun guy. I think you’re going to like him.”

A few days later. The builders, fitters, installers, security consultants’d stopped swarming their house. Now they were surrounded by electronics
and reinforced glass. They’d had a home alarm system for as long as Natalie could remember, so that wasn’t new. But all the new codes, voice recognition readers, and cameras irritated her. It was like Stefanovic’d built them into a bunker.

But she was back online for real, on Facebook. Couldn’t avoid the place forever.

In a way, it was nice to be back: everything was the same. Louise with as many pics of herself with a champagne glass in hand as usual. Tove with as many idiotic status updates as usual.

Louise wrote to her in the chat,
Natalie! Haven’t seen you here in ages!

Natalie responded in a more tempered way,
You know how it is
.

Yes :-( but how are you doing?

Better
.

Louise wrote,
You’re invited to a party at Jet Set Carl’s ;-) Did you know?

Natalie couldn’t really take it all in. Sometimes Louise seemed to think everything was just like normal.

Later that night Patrik strode into the kitchen and positioned himself in the doorway. Natalie’d had a smoothie that she’d made herself—her appetite was better now.

Patrik waited for her to look up. “Viktor’s coming. He’s parking his car on the street.”

Natalie nodded. Thought: Stefanovic’s cameras were obviously working as they should. Except Natalie already knew that Viktor was on his way. He’d texted her and asked if he could come.

She got up, walked out into the hall. A framed map of Europe was hanging on the wall. It looked old. The borders were different than today, from, like, before the First World War.

The front door was new, made of metal. Before, they’d had one with a square window in it. Now there was a flat monitor beside the door. On it, she could see Viktor opening the gate farther off. She’d texted him the code for the gate. He walked up the path. Dressed in his Italian sweater and patched jeans. He stopped for a few seconds. Straightened up. Stared straight ahead. Rang the doorbell.

The new locks were difficult. She opened the door.

They hugged. Viktor kissed her on the mouth. He asked how she was doing. Then he stopped. Natalie looked at him. His gaze floated past her, in toward the house.

Natalie turned around.

Patrik was standing farther back in the hall. Watching. Controlling. Guarding.

“Don’t mind him,” Natalie said. “He lives here now. You know, after what happened.”

Later. They’d watched
The Blind Side
, which Viktor had on his iPad. Basic gist: Sandra Bullock was nice and helped build up an American football hero. A cute movie, of course—that’s what real life was like. Not.

They were lying in Natalie’s full-size bed. Was cramped compared to Viktor’s king-size one. It felt weird, sleeping together at her house.

Usually they hung out at his place, in his rented one-bedroom on Östermalm. He’d paid a lot of money for an off-the-books rental contract, but couldn’t afford to buy anything of his own.

Viktor, bare-chested. It was nice. When the movie was over, he stood in front of the mirror and inspected his own tattoos. He had some tribal motif over his right biceps and shoulder—long, pointy black flames that wound into one another and up onto his neck. On his left forearm in curlicue lettering: 850524-0371—his own personal identification number—and two all-black five-pointed stars. And on the other side, written along his entire forearm in Gothic gangsta lettering:
BORN TO BE KING
—like on a Latino gangster from South L.A. That’s what Viktor thought, anyway.

She looked at him. Viktor’s tattoos were so silly compared to the ones that decorated the forearms of Dad’s business contacts and friends. Goran’s half-faded tattoo: the double eagle and the four Cyrillic letters CCCC—the Serbian Republic of Krajina’s national coat of arms. Milorad’s Indian feathers: ugly, 1980s-looking, monochrome. Or Stefanovic, walking past her bare-chested once at a pool when she was a little girl. She’d never forget the tattoo that covered his chest over his heart: a crucifix with a snake wrapped around it. She liked Viktor. But was he right for her?

The velvet reading chair that’d belonged to Grandma in Belgrade was standing in one corner of her room. Dad’d had it delivered when Natalie was born. Hanging from the ceiling was a white lamp with tulle around it. Along one wall was a bookshelf with some books in it: Camilla Läckberg mysteries, Marian Keyes paperbacks, Zadie Smith’s novels,
and two books by that lawyer writer. The bookshelf also held framed photos from language trips to France and England: Louise’s gleaming smile, platinum-blond hair, and abnormal tits. Tove’s sunburned arms holding up a bottle of Moët & Chandon. Several pictures of Natalie herself at different places in Paris: the bar at La Société, the dance floor at Batofar. Two photos of Richie, Natalie’s Chihuahua that’d died three years ago.

She’d brought out some favorite pairs of shoes from her walk-in closet and put them in the bottom of the bookshelf—it was almost like an installation. Black pumps from Jimmy Choo made completely in leather netting, a pair of red patent-leather Guccis, a pair of crazy Blahniks with feathers at the ankle strap. Shoes for thousands of euros. Daddy’s money was good to have.

She liked her room. Still: she could feel it clearly—it was time to move away from home, soon.

They turned the lights off. Almost pitch black. Viktor was playing with his watch. Held it up to their faces. It glowed in the dark.

“I bought a new one. What do you think?”

Natalie squinted. “I can’t actually see that much.”

“No, but you can see how crazy glow-in-the-dark it is—check out the twelve and the six. They’re the strongest. It’s a Panerai Luminor Regatta. Really sick, if I say so myself. Almost an inch thick. The Italian air force used to wear these.”

He put his arm around her.

“I think I’m going to be admitted to law school after the summer,” she said.

“Cool. And what’re you gonna do until then?”

“It’s summer soon, so I’m just gonna chill. You know the situation right now.”

“Yeah, I understand. But do you like my new watch?”

Natalie wondered how he could afford to buy that new watch. But maybe he was going to get money soon—that’s what he said anyway. Viktor’d seemed distant lately, only cared about himself and his job. Talked about how he was going to make some massive deal happen any day now, that he was going to hit the big time.

Maybe it wasn’t time just to move away from home. Maybe it was time to dump this guy too.

Natalie realized she was awake. She turned over on her side. The pillow was cool. She squeezed her toes together. Threw her arm out. Searched for Viktor.

She couldn’t reach him. No Viktor. She opened her eyes.

He wasn’t in bed.

Natalie raised her head. He was not in the room.

Her cell phone read: eight forty-five. She wondered where he’d gone.

She set her feet down on the carpet: a green-grass-colored shag. Like a lawn in her room, a sense of summer year round.

Natalie put on the white silk robe that Mom’d given her before she left for Paris. She tied the belt around her waist.