Life Deluxe (34 page)

Hägerström had been asked why he chose to become a cop thousands of times over the years. He’d stocked up on standard responses. One of them suited this situation perfectly.

“I’m kind of different, you know. I don’t always like to do what everyone else does. I think people should find their own way in life. Right?”

“Totally. Totally.”

Hägerström wanted to steer the conversation back to JW.

“But since I worked at the prison, I have to ask, wasn’t it dangerous for JW to be lending out money?”

“I don’t know. But he was pretty safe, protected by the walls, so to speak. Ha ha. You need to understand, I’ve never met anyone who’s as hungry as JW is. For the rest of us, it’s a question of appetite. For JW, it’s a question of survival. Have you ever talked business with him? If you do, check out his eyes. It’s like they’re on fire. He knows that in order to become someone in this world, you need to accrue a fortune. Become a wealthy man, so to speak. Things might be different for you, Martin. You’ve been able to do what you want—you might not have to
fight in order to become someone, because you already know you’re someone. Everyone knows who your parents are. Everyone knows where your family comes from. That’s not the way things are for JW.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

Hägerström wondered where this was going. Nippe was being weirdly somber. Maybe he was trying to defend why he was collaborating with JW somehow. He tried a more direct tactic.

“I helped him a little bit while he was in prison. Maybe he told you that?”

“No. Helped how?”

“Some favors from time to time, you know. He has a business, as you yourself put it.”

“Okay, well, that’s great.”

All Hägerström’s feelers were on hyperalert. Did Nippe understand that he was an insider? Would he reveal anything?

“JW understands the system better than some criminal
blatte
ever will, you know? And he can be more straight and open than any lawyer or accountant could ever be. People need that. Even if we’ve switched government in this fucking Social Democratic country, we still have higher taxes than anywhere else in the world. All the sane people make sure to sign themselves up as residents of Malta or Andorra. Right?”

Nippe drained his glass again. He was slurring more and more. Hägerström had to come up with something soon, because this guy might be on the floor in a few minutes.

“I just have to say how damn nice it is that you want to help JW,” Hägerström said. “I’m going to do my best to get him some clients too.”

Nippe poured more champagne. Looked at Hägerström. His eyes were cloudy.

“Clients?”

“Yes, clients. Or whatever he’s calling it.”

Nippe looked nauseous. Still, Hägerström thought it seemed like he was registering what he was saying.

“Mmmm,” Nippe said. He didn’t say anything else.

This wouldn’t work. Nippe was too drunk. He mumbled something about being tired and having to get up early on Saturday because he had a time booked at the Royal Tennis Hall. It sounded like a bad excuse. Hägerström regretted that he had fed him so many drinks.

As soon as Nippe Creutz went home, Crazy Tim, Charlie, and the others caught a second wind. It was as if they had been holding back before. The talk got cruder. The babe-watching intensified. The boozing escalated. They ordered a bottle of Dom Pérignon for thirty K.

They didn’t seem to care that Hägerström, a former CO, was sitting there listening. They talked about how much you could make slinging coke, smart methods of flipping stolen goods, sweet streets in Berlin to go whore-hunting. They talked about mutual friends who had been collared, friends who had gated out, acquaintances who had died. JW said he was thinking of going to Thailand where he knew people. They discussed the CIT robbery in Tomteboda—according to them, it was a pale copy of the helicopter robbery—and the murder of Radovan Kranjic, new formations in the Stockholm jungle.

Hägerström tried to keep up as much as possible. But he couldn’t pile it on too thick. The guys around the table knew he wasn’t a gangster to begin with.

Two guys over by the bar were glaring at them. That’s what Crazy Tim thought, anyway. They looked to be JW’s age, wearing jackets with silk handkerchiefs peeking out of their breast pockets, pressed pants.

It was two-thirty in the morning. Crazy Tim was so drunk he was slurring his words. “Those tools over there, they’ve been staring at us all night. I’m gonna ask what their fucking problem is.”

JW placed his hand on his arm. “Chill, Tim. I don’t want any trouble tonight.”

“Come on, man. I’m just gonna go ask them what they want.”

JW held him back.

JW rose a half hour later. “Boys, it’s time for me to go home.”

The guys were trashed. Still, Crazy Tim asked if JW needed company.

JW thanked him. “No, I’m fine. But maybe you can follow me to get a cab, just to make sure there’s no trouble?”

The question was directed at Hägerström.

“Absolutely.”

A small breakthrough.

JW embraced Crazy Tim, Charlie, and the other guys. He and Hägerström walked together down the steps toward the exit. The place was still thick with people. Hägerström walked first, shoving people to the side with both arms. Cleared a path for JW.

It had been a good night, trust-creating. Interesting about Nippe. One of Hägerström and Torsfjäll’s theories had been proven correct. Cards were issued by banks down there and used by people up here. And what was more, JW had pretty much asked Hägerström to be his bodyguard.

They didn’t have any jackets to pick up in the coat check. The August night was cool but comfortable.

JW walked up to one of the bouncers. Said something into the guy’s ear. He smiled.

Hägerström walked out onto the sidewalk. Tried to hail a cab. Could already feel the hangover tomorrow.

Every single cab was taken.

They both tried for five minutes, but it was a lost cause. There seemed to be a taxi drought tonight.

Finally JW said, “I think I’ll walk. Feel like walking me home?”

It wasn’t a question. It was an order.

They walked up Humlegårdsgatan. JW was renting an apartment on Narvavägen. But as he had told the guys tonight, “I swear, I’ll buy something within three months. I’ve just got to find the right piece of property.”

Crazy Tim and Charlie Nowak had just laughed—they didn’t even play the same sport as JW, let alone in the same league.

When they reached Östermalmstorg, JW stopped. He pointed at two guys a ways off.

“There are those dudes that Crazy Tim wanted to jump.”

Hägerström saw the guys, around twenty yards behind them. They were looking in JW’s direction. Crazy Tim’s irritation might have been justified—the grins on those boys’ faces weren’t friendly.

“They recognize me from back then,” JW said. “Do you understand?”

Hägerström nodded. He thought about the double-cross JW used to play. Wondered if he actually felt more comfortable in his own skin now, when everyone already knew he had done time. When people no longer believed he was someone he wasn’t.

The guys over there laughed. The sound echoed across the open square.

JW and Hägerström kept walking.

They reached Storgatan. But the entire time Hägerström could hear the guys’ footsteps behind them—they were drawing closer, too quickly. He wondered what JW expected him to do about it.

After a few seconds, he turned around. “Is there something you want?”

The guys were only ten yards behind. They came walking toward them slowly. “What did you say? Did you say something?”

Hägerström and JW were standing very still.

“Don’t worry about it,” JW said. “My buddy’s just had a little too much to drink.”

The guys approached them. Blocked their path. Stopped.

One of them was slurring his words, “I recognize you. JW. Do you remember me?”

JW started walking around them. “No, I don’t know who you are. But have a nice rest of your night.”

The dude wasn’t satisfied with that. He took a step closer to JW, slammed into him with his shoulder. JW stumbled. The guys burst out in hyena laughter.

Hägerström took a step forward. JW took a step back, fished out his phone.

“Calm down,” Hägerström said.

The guy ignored him, turned to JW instead. “No normal person came to your little party tonight, did they?”

JW was standing three yards off to the side, talking quietly into his phone. Didn’t even react to the guys’ provocations.

“Go home and go to bed,” Hägerström said. “You’ve had too much to drink.”

The first guy turned to him. Got up close. Chest to chest. They were the same height.

“And who the fuck are you?”

Hägerström didn’t respond, but tensed his entire body.

The guy was spraying spit as he spoke. “Huh? Who the fuck are you, you fucking joke? Do you know who that guy is you’re hanging around with?”

Hägerström didn’t say much, just tried to calm the guy down. “We don’t want any trouble here tonight.”

The guy wouldn’t let up. They bickered back and forth for a while.

It was high time to get JW out of there. Hägerström began to walk backward, all the while keeping his eye on the guy.

It didn’t work. The guy followed him. Continued his spit: “You fucking clown.”

Meanwhile, in the corner of his eye, Hägerström saw guy number two readying himself to pounce. Shoved JW in the shoulder again.

Crossroads decision at lightning speed: either he took these guys down, or he and JW would be forced to bolt. The first alternative might get totally out of hand. The latter could equal a humiliation that JW would hate.

JW tumbled into a wall. Hägerström raised his voice: “I said, calm the fuck down.”

He tried to make eye contact with JW, gauge what he wanted to do.

The guy near Hägerström yelled, “You fucking fag, who do you think you are?”

The words provoked him. Hägerström looked over at JW once again.

But it was too late. He heard yelling.

Crazy Tim was running toward them.

At the same time, the guy near Hägerström threw his body at him. His jacket fluttered. The dude’s fist came flying. Just missed Hägerström’s ear.

Crazy Tim reached them. Hägerström saw that he was holding something in his hand.

A spring baton.

He whipped the weapon, striking the guy in the back of the head.

The dude collapsed onto the ground.

The other guy shoved JW again. Then tried to run over to his floored friend.

Hägerström’s thoughts were raging. What was happening right now was not okay, but these cocky motherfuckers were acting like pigs.

Hägerström grabbed the guy. Shoved him. He teetered backward.

Crazy Tim threw himself over him. Rapped his face with the baton.

The guy lying on the ground began to stand up. Was on all fours.

Hägerström went over to him. Held him down with his knees and arms.

The brat looked up at him with cloudy eyes.

He was bleeding from the nose. “You fucking psycho.”

Then he tried to knock Hägerström aside.

Oh, hell no
. Hägerström felt the adrenaline begin to rush through his veins.

The guy tried to wrestle him to the ground.

Something in Hägerström snapped. He threw a punch in the guy’s face.

Hard.

Felt a nose breaking.

He struck again.

Felt lips tearing.

He struck again.

Finally the guy lay still. Curled into the fetal position, arms raised above his head.

Hägerström got up. He was out of breath.

The other guy was also lying still on the ground.

JW and Crazy Tim were looking at Hägerström approvingly.

Natalie stretched her arms out as far as she could. Tried to feel the muscles in her back. It wasn’t easy—the back’s musculature was particularly difficult to pinpoint. She tried to elongate them, limber them up. Stretch like a pro.

The instructor was playing a slow song: Michael Jackson’s “Heal the World.”

Everyone around her was lying on mats on the floor, just like Natalie. Stretching their bodies. Their muscles. They were girls her own age, one or two middle-aged women, but only three guys. Guys didn’t need classes at the gym the same way the girls did—they had their martial arts clubs, company soccer leagues, and floorball tournaments. They had more natural places where they got exercise than in front of a mirror in a windowless room. The whole gym thing was pretty crazy if you thought about it—a generation’s feeble attempt to live up to its own sick body ideal. A generation of people who’d learned to be dissatisfied with themselves no matter what they looked like. Who sought some sort of meaning in their lives.