Life Deluxe (2 page)

Maybe.

“Yo, Shawshank!”

Jorge glanced to the side.

Babak was coming toward him. Open arms—fake smile. The Iranian
hugged him. Pounded him on the back. Cut him with verbal knives. “How’s the café, bro? You sure the margins ain’t better on kebab than coffee?”

Jorge pulled his head back. Eyed the guy from a foot’s distance. Offered his gift: a bottle of Dom Pérignon 2002—apparently fancy as fuck.

Babak: Mahmud’s oldest homie. Babak: Iranian dealer guru with mad pussy juju and thick project bijoux—that’s how he saw himself, anyway. Babak had made the climb that Jorge’d once planned to make. Stolen the path that’d been paved for him. Started off down on the street, working corners. Learned the game. Understood the hood—how regular ghetto hustlers’d started using as much as the slickest Stureplan snobs, but with a dozen zeros added on. Figured the future. Blow today: more common with kids in their twenties than weed with the teens.

Could’ve been Jorge’s game. His jam. But it didn’t work out that way.

And today the Iranian was treating all his boys to a night out, at a club. Party with strippers, champagne, and free beer in the bar. Jorge’d been given the invite from one of Babak’s underlings. Printed in Gothic lettering:
CELEBRATE LIKE A REAL BANDIT! I
’
M TURNING 25
AND TREATING YOU TO BUBBLES, BITCHES, AND BUFFET. THE RED LIGHT CLUB ON ROSLAGSGATAN. COME AS YOU ARE
.

Babak’s attitude: irritating like a mosquito bite on your ass. The glitter in the Iranian’s eye. His tone of voice: like being spit in the face. The little clown knew that Jorge and Mahmud slaved away every day like Romanian whores on a Saturday night. Knew they didn’t flip even half as much paper in a month as he did in a week. Knew the Yugos were sucking extra cash out of them for their protection. Certain: he knew the tax man was chasing them with a blowtorch. A hundred percent: Cunt-Babak clocked that café life wasn’t cutting it for J-boy.

What Jorge couldn’t understand was why Mahmud didn’t just break his nose and then their friendship. It was all kinds of fucked up.

But wackest of all was what Babak’d just called him: Shawshank. That name … honestly, Jorge couldn’t take it. Shawshank—what bullshit. Babak was beating on a broken brother. Pushed the knife in further for an extra twist, sprinkled chili on his wounds.

It had been almost five years since Jorge’d broken out of the Österåker Pen. Sure, a lot of
blattes
out there’d heard his story a thousand times. A legend among the ants in the public housing hill. A story you dreamed about when the cement in the cell walls threatened to suffocate you.
But also, just like all stories: the boys out there knew how it ended. The Latino, the legend, J-boy, Shawshank—been forced to crawl back in. Like a loser. Freedom,
adiós
. It was a shitty story.

And Babak never missed a chance to remind him.

A couple of BMC guys were hanging out in the bar: leather vests like black uniforms. One percent tags, MC Sweden badges, and the Fat Mexican on their chests and backs. Tattoos on their necks, forearms, around their eyes. Jorge knew a few of those hustlers. Not exactly café owners, but nice enough. But he knew what the nine-to-fivers thought when they saw those guys. As if it were written with flashing letters on their vests—one feeling: fear.

He shook Babak.

Farther in by the side of the stage he saw the cousins and relatives. Small, downy-lipped Babak clones. For them, being at the same party as half of Bandidos MC Stockholm was like being at an ill celebrity throwdown.

One dude started walking toward Jorge. Silhouette: like a monkey. Overly broad shoulders, arms that reached far down on his thighs. The guy: Anabola-beefy, but he’d apparently forgotten about his legs—they stuck out at the bottom like two snort straws.

It was Peppe. A pen pal from Österåker.

Jorge hadn’t seen him since.

Peppe was wearing a vest. On the left side of his chest: the word
Prospect
. He was obviously becoming big time.

“Yo, my brotha!” They embraced. Jorge was careful not to touch the vest with his hands. Unnecessary to mess with the rules of the one percenters.

“What’s up, ma brotha? You getting pussy these days?” Peppe said.

The guy was probably a racist to the core, but still—his Million Program Swedish was tight. Jorge laughed. The dude still had the same sense of humor.

Jorge responded, “It happens, ma brotha, it happens.” He pronounced
ma brotha
the same way as Peppe. And then he said, “I see you got yourself a vest.”

“Fuck man, you know how much pussy I get with this thing? It’s crazy, man.”

“What, you keep the vest on?”

Peppe: poker face.

Jorge was about to say something. Stopped. Eyed Peppe. The guy was glaring at him.

Finally, “Don’t joke about the vest.”

Jorge didn’t give a fuck. Some dudes took their colors too seriously.

But after ten seconds, Peppe grinned again. “Leather in the sack isn’t my thing. But you tried handcuffs? Real nice, man.”

They laughed together.

His Bandidos buddy changed the subject, kept letting his mouth run. Smart schemes in the construction business. Tax fraud, invoice forgeries, under-the-table pay. Jorge nodded along. It was interesting. It was important. He even thought about asking Peppe for help with the Yugos. At the same time, he knew the rules: everyone takes care of their own shit.

And the entire time: he couldn’t stop thinking about tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Jorge downed his glass of champagne.

The day after. Bag-feeling under his eyes. Hangover pounding through his head. Breath like a turd dipped in lighter fluid. Still: a kind of relaxation. With his best friend, Mahmud. On their way to Södertälje. On their way to what might be the most important meeting in J-boy’s life.

It was two-thirty in the afternoon. Him and the Arab in their car. Or really: the car was owned by their café company. One of the advantages: so much shit that could be bought on the company dollar. Cell phones, computers, DVDs, 3D WiFi Full LED TVs. Like, everything—that’s what they thought, anyway. But as it turned out, that’s not what the tax man thought.

They were on their way to something big. The big thing at the top of the criminal hierarchy. The concrete was crawling with success stories: the Hallunda coup, the Arlanda heist, the helicopter robbery. And everyone knew that not alotta people were in the know about the planning, that only a few people were sitting on the recipes. But Jorge’d gotten an in.

And that was who they were gonna go see now. Someone who knew how it was done. A brain.

It’d started to rain, winter was losing its grip.

Mahmud turned the seat-heater off. “My balls get too hot, man. You can go sterile and shit.”

“What, babydaddy, you got plans? Who you gonna knock up? Beatrice?”

Mahmud turned around. “Beatrice is good at selling lattes, but she’d probably be a worthless mom.”

“Fuck,
hermano
, she ain’t good at selling coffee either. We should hire someone new.”

“Yeah, but no one too fine. Can’t deal with that.”

They drove past IKEA on their left. Jorge thought of his sister. Paola loved IKEA. She tried to decorate at home. Put up bookshelves that were impossible to figure out and took ages to screw together, nailed framed posters on the Sheetrock walls where the hooks always fell out after a few hours. Build a life. Blend in. But where did she really think it would get her? Trying to be a Sven wouldn’t make her a Swede.

She was naïve. Still: Jorge loved her and Jorgito like crazy.

Mahmud was blabbering on about Babak’s party the night before. Which one of the strippers’d had it poppin’. If Rob or Tom’d scored. If Babak or Peppe’d raked in the most dough. Jorge didn’t have the energy to listen to him—his constant worship of the Iranian.

Outside the window: the Tumba commuter rail station. A sign hung over the road:
ALBY
. Mahmud turned around again. “Those are my hoods, over there. You know that.”

“You fucking with me, man? You’ve got Alby inked over half your body. ’Course I know.”

“And now we’re going to Södertälje. That’s almost my hood too.”

“You been there before—so what?”

“What if I know this dude we’re seeing?”

“I don’t think so. Denny calls him the Finn. You don’t know any Finns other than Tom Lehtimäki, right?”

“No, but maybe he’s not a Finn. Maybe he’s from south of the city. You know, alotta shit went down a few years ago. The gang war against Eddie Ljublic and his people. So if the Finn’s from here, maybe he was involved. Then it’s a fifty-fifty chance he was on the wrong side. With the cunts.”

“What you mean, fifty-fifty? The risk is much lower than that.”

“Yeah, but still not. Either he was with the cunts or he wasn’t—there
are two alternatives. It’s one or the other, that’s fifty-fifty. So I think you can say it’s fifty percent chance.”

Jorge grinned.
“Eres loco, hermano.”

At the same time, the questions were piling up in his head. Who was it they were gonna go see? How did they know he wasn’t some pig infiltrator? Were they gonna make a deal with him? And if not, what were they gonna do about the tax man and the Yugos? The Swedish government and the underworld’s government were about to gang-bang the shit out of the café.

The car’s heat vents were spurting sound. The windshield wipers were squeaking.

Maybe: on their way to the biggest gig ever.

Maybe: on their way to a fresh start.

Twenty minutes later. Södertälje. More like a suburb to Stockholm than like a city in its own right. The two of them took turns going there every other morning. The place where left-wing extremists burned down grocery stores, housing project teens shot at the police station with assault rifles, the X-team warred against the Syrian brotherhood, and the industrial bakeries baked the fluffiest ciabatta north of Italy. The city from which Suryoyo TV and Suryoyo Sat broadcast all over the world, the place that was actually called Little Baghdad.

Södertälje: where it was rumored that over half of all CIT robberies in Sweden were planned.

They parked in a parking garage behind the pedestrian street in the center of town.

Mahmud pulled out a steering wheel lock.

“What’re you doing?” Jorge asked.

“This is Södertälje, man. Every other kid born here is a soccer pro, and the rest are car thieves.”

“Yeah, but we go here every day.”

“But not
here
here. Not downtown.”

Jorge grinned. “I think you’re a little jumpy, buddy. We’re in a parking garage.”

They got out. Walked down to Storgatan. The weather still sucked. All around: mostly old people, kids, and mustachioed men drinking tea in the cafés.

Mahmud pointed at the old men. “That’s what my dad looks like.”

Jorge nodded. Knew: if Mahmud got going, he could talk for hours about how Sven Sweden’d betrayed his old man. How Beshar first hadn’t gotten a job, lived on welfare, then got a job—a job that fucked up his back so bad, he had to go on disability for the rest of his life. His buddy was right, but Jorge didn’t have the energy to listen.

They veered onto a side street off Storgatan.

Jorge’s phone rang.

Paola: “It’s me.
Que haces, hermano
?”

Jorge thought:
Should I tell her the truth?

He said, “I’m in Södertälje.”

“At a bakery?”

Paola: J-boy loved her. Still, he couldn’t take it.

He said, “Yeah, yeah, ’course I’m at a bakery. But we gotta talk later—I got my hands full of muffins here.”

They hung up.

Mahmud glanced at him.

Up ahead, the place where they were going: Gabbe’s Pizzeria.

A bell rang when they opened the door. A dank pizza place. One wall was exposed brick; the other had a poster tacked to it:
NEW: MEXICAN TACO PIZZAS
. Jorge thought:
Yeah right, real new. That ad must’ve been there since the nineties
.

There were old ladies’ magazines and tabloids on the tables. It was four o’clock. The place was completely empty.

A man emerged from the kitchen. Flour-stained apron, T-shirt with red lettering:
GABBE
’
S DOES IT BETTER
. Two fat gold link chains hung from his neck.

Jorge winked at the pizza baker. “Vadúr sent me.”

The dude stared at them. Mahmud squirmed anxiously behind Jorge. The pizza baker disappeared back into the room behind the counter. Spoke quietly with someone, or into a phone. Came back out. Nodded.

They walked out the back of the store. A black Opel. Jorge quickly sized up the car: the passenger seat and the backseat were filled with pizza boxes. The pizza guy climbed in behind the wheel. Jorge and Mahmud had to squeeze in with the cardboard in the back. They rolled away from downtown. Past the mall, the district court, the parking lots. Outside the city: the Million Program high-rises coiled like mountain ranges—same scenery as his home turf.

So far the pizza baker hadn’t said a word to them.

Mahmud leaned close to Jorge, whispered in his ear: “That player’s gonna drown. Look how much he weighs.”

Jorge whispered back, “What, why?”

“The gold he’s got ’round his neck’s gotta weigh more than a bowling ball. If homeboy doesn’t watch himself next time he’s cooking up red sauce, he’ll fall in and never come back up.”

Jorge almost laughed. The fact that Mahmud was joking felt good, cut the stiff air a little. Really, there wasn’t anything to be afraid of today. If it worked, it worked. That’s all there was to it.

They got out by a high-rise.

The pizza baker pressed the button for the elevator. They waited. The metal doors squeaked. Carvings with tags, telephone numbers to alleged hookers, Arabic curses.

They rode up. Jorge almost got that dropping sensation in his stomach, like you get in very fast elevators. The sixth floor. They stepped out. The guy fished out a set of keys. Unlocked a door. Jorge managed to glimpse the name on the mail slot:
EDEN
. It felt like a sign.