Life Deluxe (64 page)

Hägerström put the plastic bag into his bag. It weighed less than a carton of milk would. He was 99 percent sure that there was cash in the bag.

“You’ll get half now and the rest when you come home,” JW said. “The only thing you need to do is go through customs in Zurich and then take the train. At the train station, you’ll lock the plastic bag in a storage box. That’s all.”

Hägerström put the envelope into the inner pocket of his jacket. “That sounds easier than shooting a moose, anyway.”

“It’s ten times easier. Believe me, there’s nothing to worry about.”

That afternoon he met Torsfjäll at one of the apartments where they used to meet up pre-Thailand. They opened the bag together, both of them wearing latex gloves.

“He’s asked me to be a mule—it’s on record,” Hägerström said. “And I know where they keep their material. Now we’ve finally got him.”

Torsfjäll put the stacks of bills on the table. “Let us listen, and let us see.”

They listened to the recording. Then they counted the bills carefully: six hundred thousand kronor. Most of the bills were dyed. Torsfjäll held up a couple of five-hundred-kronor bills, examined them with a magnifying glass that he fished out of his briefcase. He turned every bill over several times—inspected the numbers, the dye stains.

He said, “I’m not sure that what JW said will yield all that much. But this is money from the Tomteboda robbery. This is Jorge’s money, definitely.”

“Yes, and what’s even better, I’ll take the stuff down to Liechtenstein, and we’ll see who picks it up. We’ll arrest that person, while we arrest JW at the same time and hit up their secret location.”

“No. We have to wait. If we arrest JW now, Jorge will disappear.”

“But finding him may prove difficult.”

“Yes, he’s obviously managed to get this money to JW without you knowing about it. He’s going to leave any minute now, whether or not we arrest JW. But if we take JW, he’ll disappear immediately. We’ve kept the streets around Arlanda under top surveillance over the past few days, but that fucker’s smart.”

They talked for another few minutes. Then Torsfjäll wanted to end the meeting. The inspector took the bag with the bills. He was going to prepare them, as he put it.

The next morning they met up again in the same apartment. It wasn’t even five-thirty a.m. When Pravat was little, he used to wake up at this hour all the time. Hägerström would bring him into the living room, put him on the couch, and lie down on the edge so Pravat wouldn’t fall down. And then Pravat would sit there playing with balls and blocks while Hägerström half-snoozed for another half an hour.

Torsfjäll pulled the bag from his briefcase and handed it over to Hägerström.

“It’s the same bills, but they’ve all been sprayed with smart DNA. We can follow them to the end of the world. Whoever touches them will get this stuff on their fingers, and it’ll stick for at least three days.”

Hägerström agreed. It was clever. But he still didn’t understand why they weren’t going to arrest JW now. Jorge was probably on his way back to Thailand. If they arrested JW, it would stress him out even more, make him less cautious. And if they had people at Arlanda, there was nothing to worry about. What’s more, he ought to be able to get hold of Jorge on his own before then, if he used JW.

There was something off about Torsfjäll’s reasoning—but there wasn’t time to discuss it with the inspector right now. Hägerström had to go to Zurich.

He didn’t run into any trouble at Arlanda. He was dressed in a suit, no tie. He had put the bag with the money in an old suitcase that his father had given him twenty years ago. Perfect, because there was a metal thread inside each bill. All together they would set off the metal detector if he brought it along as a carry-on. He filled the rest of the bag with shirts, pants, and underwear.

He had a one-way ticket. Having a return flight on the same day would’ve seemed odd with all that luggage.

On the plane, his thoughts were spinning.

He thought of Thailand. Of his brother and his friends. In his mind’s eye, he saw JW’s impressed expression. He missed Pravat. He hated the fact that longing for the boy had become his normal state of being.

He thought of his father. In 1996 Hägerström had been an assistant police officer for a year. He’d met a guy, Christopher, a couple of times at a club on Sveavägen. They would dance, drink vodka drinks, and go home to Hägerström’s place and fuck. Hägerström brought Christopher to Avesjö one weekend in November. It was before Carl had taken the place over. The estate was more or less empty during the winters. Father usually asked the groundskeeper to stop by once a week, that was all.

Hägerström picked Christopher up outside his apartment on Tulegatan. He was thin with bleached-blond hair. A toned-down femmeness that Hägerström liked.

They drove out to Värmdö. Hägerström played Backstreet Boys in the car. Dug the music ironically. Winked at Christopher.
“When we’re alone, girl, I wanna push up/Can I get it?”

Hägerström disarmed the alarm in the house. Turned on the lights.

Got settled. They cooked Asian food for dinner. Christopher said he wanted to drink ABC—anything but Chardonnay. Hägerström got a couple bottles of Sauvignon Blanc from Father’s wine cellar. They talked about how they dealt with their sexuality. About when they had had their first experiences with men. About which places in Stockholm were serious and which were just dirty.

At night, they lay down on the bed in Hägerström’s parents’ room. Made out. Rolled around on the king-sized bed and kissed. They closed their eyes and let their hands find their way.

Christopher produced a bottle of lube, as if by magic. They made love.

Suddenly, in the middle of it all, Hägerström heard a sound from the ground floor.

He tore out of bed.

Someone called from down there, “Hello?”

He called back, “Who is it?”

“Göran. Is it you, Martin?”

Hägerström threw his boxers on. Walked out of the room.

Called, “I’m coming down.” Whispered to Christopher to get out of the bedroom.

It was too late. Father was already walking up the stairs.

Hägerström met him in the upstairs hallway.

“What are you doing here?”

Hägerström said, “I’m here with a friend. I was asleep. Didn’t know you were coming out here tonight.”

Father looked at him. Shook his head. “You were asleep already? It’s only eight-thirty.”

Back on the plane. Hägerström missed his father. Even if they hadn’t had a close connection or been similar in any way, his father’s love had always been unconditional. It’s not like he ever said anything. His father didn’t talk about feelings like that. But you could still feel it—in his way of talking with his children, looking at them, hugging them when they hadn’t seen each other in a while.

Hägerström thought of Javier again. The tattoos on his back, his tanned arms and back. His laughter. He didn’t want to think about him, but he couldn’t stop.

It felt like he needed him now.

The plane landed according to schedule. Hägerström waited for his bag. It looked untouched—he had put a piece of tape over the opening as a control mechanism. He rolled it through customs without incident.

The express train pulled into the station fifteen minutes later. The seats were incredibly comfortable.

When he arrived at the station, he walked straight to the storage boxes. He put the bag with the money in box number 432 and inserted four one-euro coins into the slot. He bought a
Vanity Fair
and took the train back to the Zurich airport. He had a seat at a café and waited for his return flight. JW was supposed to have booked it during the day.

The flight home departed according to schedule. Hägerström had delivered twelve hundred DNA-marked bills in less than twelve hours. Door to door.

When he got home, he was tired. Sat down in front of the TV. A dance competition was playing on one of the channels.

His cell phone rang.

A panting voice. At first he couldn’t hear who it was.

“Yo, Hägerström. I gotta see you. I got mad problems.”

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Jorge. We gotta meet up right now, man.”

He wondered what had happened. Jorge sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

Hägerström was only thinking one thing:
Now the case must be completely finished
.

Now they could arrest Jorge. Which meant that there was no reason to wait to arrest JW.

It was finally time to reel them in.

* * *

Goran’d booked a chamber separée at the casino. Honestly—Natalie wasn’t so sure anymore that Gabriel Hanna’s Gaming Club in Västerås was lame in comparison. Casino Cosmopol—it was big and state-run, claimed to be superlegal—but the Stockholm casino still felt shabby.

Maybe it’d been top-notch when it opened seven years ago. Now: the mirrors’d lost their shine, the buttons on the gambling machines were worn down, and the original color of the wall-to-wall carpeting was impossible to determine.

On the walls: ads for Christmas banquets and a New Year’s dinner. Seafood tower for two for 799 kronor. The jackpot at the casino right now: 32,900,000 kronor—at max bet: 37.50 kronor. At the same time: informational posters:
DO YOU THINK YOU GAMBLE TOO MUCH?—WWW.CURBYOURPLAYING.COM
. Standard Swedish hypocrisy in a shrimp shell—lure the poor devils here with seafood and fat jackpots so they gamble and make money for the state, but at the same time, pretend that it’d really be best if they didn’t come here at all.

The place was occupied by three different factions: one-third antiquated hags, one-third Asians, and one-third dudes in short-sleeved button-downs. Natalie heard Louise’s voice in her head:
“Go ahead, joke and be happy—but never wear a short-sleeved shirt to a casino
.” She was glad they had their own room.

They were sitting around a gaming table. A croupier dealt the cards. Natalie didn’t get any.

She, Goran, and Thomas plus two others around the table.

One: Dad’s old business colleague from Belgrade, Ivan Hasdic. The other: his bodyguard.