Life Deluxe (73 page)

She walked over to him. No kisses on the cheeks, no polite one-liners, no nice-cardigan comments. They just hugged each other. For a long time.

Hägerström breathed in her scent. Her perfume. Her hair touched his cheek.

He closed his eyes. Saw Pravat running toward her at home in her flat. How she had scooped him up, calling,
“My little golden nugget.”

He said, “I’m sorry, Mother.”

They sat down.

“Me too,” Lottie said.

Hägerström had made up his mind. He was going to put all the cards on the table. Tell her the truth.

They had an hour. He spoke quickly. He told her how Torsfjäll had contacted him. How he had learned as much as possible about JW. How he had been fired from the police because of some made-up fight outside a hot dog stand. The grounds for his termination had all been fake. He explained how Torsfjäll had gotten him a position at the Salberga Penitentiary. How he had done everything to wheedle his way in, become friends with JW. How he had even brought him along on a moose hunt at Carl’s place.

Lottie listened.

Hägerström tried to see if she believed him.

She didn’t move a muscle.

When he was finished, he said, “You may not believe me, Mother. But I want you to contact a man named Mrado Slovocic and ask him a single question: Who did I ask him about when he was cooperating with the police?”

Lottie nodded.

She didn’t say anything for a while. Then she said, “And Pravat?”

It was as though everything he had just said was insignificant—the only thing that mattered was his relationship with Pravat. In a way, it was a relief. She didn’t care if he was an infiltrator or not. To her, his world was foreign no matter what. The simple fact that he had chosen to become a police officer more than fifteen years ago remained inexplicable.

“When I’m released,” Hägerström said, “I’m going to buy a house in Lidingö. In the area where Anna lives. That’s all I know now.”

“And what else?”

Hägerström wondered what she meant. But there was one more thing he wanted to tell her now. It was time. He had promised himself. He was going to put
all
the cards on the table.

“There’s one more thing I want to tell you, Mother.”

She played with her scarf. Lowered her gaze.

Hägerström thought of the J. A. G. Acke paintings hanging in her
home. The three young naked men standing on a cliff in the middle of the ocean.

“I am homosexual.”

Lottie looked up.

“Martin.” Pause. “I’ve known that for twenty years.”

The police’d tried to interrogate her to pieces.

“What were you doing at the hotel?”

“What were you doing in the conference room?”

“Who else was there with you?”

“Did you see anything happen to Stefanovic?”

She had answered evasively throughout, insinuated that someone else’d murdered him. The cops weren’t idiots—they sensed intuitively that she was lying, but they couldn’t know about what.

She was held in custody for three months. Finally they were forced to let her go.

She’d been in the conference room. But so had JW and three unknown Russian men. There was no way to prove that she, specifically, had been the one who murdered Stefanovic—there were no DNA traces or fingerprints on the weapon, she’d wiped it meticulously. There were no traces on her person. None of the men who’d been down in the lobby would talk to the police—general praxis according to their code of honor. And above all: the Russians were gone—they were suitable as perps.

She was sitting in the library, waiting for a meeting to begin.

She didn’t think about Dad as much anymore. She didn’t see Melissa Cherkasova’s face as often when she was about to fall asleep.

She’d done the only thing that was possible to do. Punished the one who had to be punished.

Stefanovic’d looked surprised, there in the conference room, when she stabbed him the first time. Then he’d been seized with panic.

The filed comb handle sank in so easily. She needed only one more jab in order to be on the safe side. She waited for a few minutes after he’d collapsed. There was blood all over the floor.

No one outside the room appeared to’ve reacted. The men were all sitting one flight down, waiting.

And then, in the parking lot, she’d met Semjon Averin eye to eye.

But her blessing in disguise: the police crackdown’d exploded around her.

Natalie’d had to spend three months behind bars because the hotel was rammed chock-full of cops. Still, she thanked them—if they hadn’t been there, she would’ve ended up like Dad. The Wolf Averin would’ve shot her in the head from a distance of less than fifteen feet.

They arrested JW and his driver, Hägerström. They arrested several of the men, both hers and Stefanovic’s. They didn’t manage to arrest the Russians or the interpreter. And they didn’t manage to arrest Averin. They must’ve been surprised when he showed up, or else they never even discovered that he was there.

She didn’t know.

She leaned back in the armchair. On the drink table were bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue Label, Glenfiddich, vodka, gin, Coca-Cola, and tonic water.

She poured a glass of Blue Label.

They ought to be here in ten minutes.

She thought about JW.

There must’ve been a leak somewhere. Why else’d all the cops been there? Maybe it was that driver, Hägerström. Jorge, JW’s buddy, had called JW in the lobby. Started talking about how he shouldn’t trust him.

JW’d called about a few things, like that stuff with Hägerström’s sister. What Jorge’d said checked out—Hägerström’d lied about some weird stuff. JW was paranoid as usual—didn’t take any risks. He’d called Mischa Bladman immediately.

Which was the right thing to do. Twenty minutes after the hit against the Radisson Blu Arlandia, the police had arrived at the doorstep of MB Accounting Consultant’s offices. Apparently they also knew the location of its secret office.

More than fifteen police officers stormed in, pushed Bladman up against the wall. Searched the office and the extra office with a magnifying glass.

But they didn’t find anything.

Bladman was a hero. In no time, he and a couple of assistants’d
deleted the hard drives, made sure the most important binders disappeared, and emptied out the archives in the office and the bookshelves in the secret office. They’d gotten rid of all material that might serve as evidence.

JW was released from custody at the same time she was. Free as a bird.

He’d called her and told her the story. The white-collar cops had a lot of material, but his name, account, or signature didn’t appear anywhere. The front man, Hansén, had done a thorough job. And Bladman’d acted with extreme speed.

And now JW was abroad somewhere. Letting things cool down.

Right now there were just a few too many people who were pissed off here at home.

Eighty lost millions had a tendency to create some frustration.

But he would come back—he’d promised Natalie he would.

She longed for him.

The door to the library opened.

Goran stepped inside.

They kissed each other on the cheeks.

Natalie poured a glass of whiskey for him. He sat down.

“The others are coming, any minute now.”

“Good.”

He said, “Ivan Hasdic’s guy called. They’re sending gear up tomorrow. It should be here on Thursday.”

Natalie took a sip of her whiskey.

“Good,” she repeated.

They sat in silence for a little while.

Goran said, “And I had Darko have a talk with your ex, Viktor.”

“And what did he say?”

“Darko had to explain things to him, be very clear. But now they’ve reached an agreement, and he understands the consequences. He’s not going to do anything that disappoints anyone.”

Natalie leaned back. “Good,” she said for the third time. She knew that JW would be pleased.

The library’d turned out nice. She’d put up new wallpaper. Pale green instead of the former dark color. New bookshelves along the
walls—lighter, with square compartments for the books. She’d let the paintings remain. Europe and the Balkans. The Danube. The battle of Kosovo Polje. The portraits of the old holy guys. The maps of Serbia and Montenegro.

But she’d also hung a new painting: a framed, engraved map of Stockholm, dated 1803.

The city had been significantly smaller back then. The Old Town, the northern parts, Södermalm, and certain parts of Norrmalm’d been developed. Back then, everything else had been a vegetable garden.

Stockholm: it was her territory now. Her business.

She used to wonder who she was. Was she a girl who’d been forced to grow up too quickly? Was she a woman who’d taken on her rightful role in life? Was she a student or a criminal? Serb or Swede?

Now she knew who she was—she was a Stockholmer. One hundred percent.

She was Natalie Kranjic. Radovan Kranjic’s daughter.

She was the new Kum.

She was Queen of Stockholm.

It oughta be here in ten minutes. He knew how it usually worked. The court faxed the verdict to the office in the jail. The office in the jail sent a messenger up to the unit. Someone in the unit delivered it to the prisoner.

The trial’d taken four weeks.

Him, Javier, Babak, Robert, and Sergio. And the Finn. Lined up next to their lawyers in the Stockholm District Court’s security room.

The media were there for the first few days, behind Plexiglas. They lost interest when the long cross-examinations began.

The charges were complicated. Basically, the prosecutor wanted to nail them, hard.

* * *

* * *

Additional charges were added because of the cabbie who’d had a fake gat pressed against his temple when Jorge fled through the city, and because of the Javier rescue mission. Where Hägerström’d been involved too.

In her closing arguments, the prosecutor’d recommended that Javier, Babak, and Sergio be sentenced to eight years.

She’d recommended twelve for Jorge.

Honestly, Jorge was sorry the guard’d been blinded and was wheelchair bound. But fuck, that hadn’t been on purpose—it had been the Finn’s fault, his shitty planning. And the cabbie—he’d never been in any real danger. It had just been an airsoft gun. ’Course, he hadn’t known that.

The prosecutor and the lawyers’d been warring like maniacs.

The DNA evidence: palm grease from Jorge in the Range Rover.

Strands of Babak’s hair in an apartment where a walkie-talkie’d also been found.

Sergio’s skin cells inside a found ski mask.

Strange texts on Robert’s cell phone.

Maps of the Klarastrand highway found on the hard drive in Javier’s home computer.

And why had most of them left Sweden in the days immediately following the robbery?

There was no so-called direct evidence against any of them.

But the pattern, the connections, the bad explanations. Still, the prosecutor needed more robust evidence. And to provide it, there was nothing better than witnesses. She had a trump card there, unfortunately—they called in that Viktor fucker. The dude’d babbled
like a greenhorn in the police interrogations. His words on the witness stand could get them all convicted.

Jorge’s lawyer told them that both Babak and Sergio were screwed. For Jorge, it was fifty-fifty.

A lot depended on what Viktor would say in his witness testimony.

And for the Finn: the prosecutor referred to a dyed bill that’d been found in one of the pizzerias he ran—it was weaker than weak. But no matter what, the dude would still get convicted for the shots against Jorge, Jorgito, and Paola. Attempted murder—that was enough to put him away for at least eight years.

Jorge thought of the gravel pit.

He’d survived: opened his eyes in the ICU at Huddinge Hospital. Thanked God he’d been wearing a bulletproof vest. His kidneys and liver’d made it through, even though two bullets’d burrowed into his back.

Whatever the verdict was, no matter how many years he got—he was an intact human being.

Paola’d made it into the car, thrown herself inside.

And Jorgito’d been shielded by Jorge’s body.

They were alive.

Jorge’s plan was clear. If he was freed, he’d bounce. Maybe to some other, bigger place than Thailand. The cops knew he’d been there. Somehow they also knew he’d wanted to buy a place there. Maybe that Hägerström dude’d snitched.

But still, not.

The guy’d apparently been slammed with three years for freeing Javier.

Also: if the guy’d been a rat, he would’ve told the cops what Jorge’d done during that rescue mission. But not a word from Hägerström. So weirdly enough: thanks to the ex-screw, Jorge’d probably walk on that charge.

In the courtroom the other day, Javier’d whispered something strange to Jorge: “If I’m convicted, I’m gonna try to end up in the same cage as Martin. And if I walk, I’m gonna visit him right away.”

It was weird. Jorge glanced down at the documents in front of Javier.

He’d been doodling. Drawn stick figures and old tags. But one other thing—in the margin, Javier’d written:
Martin
.

They were better bros than Jorge’d realized. Much better.

Jorge thought about the conversation he’d just had over the jailhouse phone.

He remembered the number by heart: the dreadlock chick he’d met in Phuket and at Arlanda.

The phone signals sounded different than in Sweden.