Never Fuck Up: A Novel (45 page)

“Yo, who the fuck are you, man? Get lost.” Mahmud glanced out at the Volvo; two Swedish-looking guys were sitting in the front seats.

“I’ll be leaving soon. Don’t worry. You can call me Alex.”

Mahmud could feel it in his entire body: this was a cop.

“I’m not talking to you.”

“Why not? I want you to listen to me, just for a few minutes. I assume you’ve got something in this car that you’re not allowed to have. Am I right?”

“I told you, I’m not talking to you.”

“Just tell Dijma that things got hot and I split. I’ve already messed with him all night, so he won’t be surprised.”

“I haven’t done anything illegal, or whatever you’re talking about.”

“It’s okay, Mahmud. I’m not going to take anything. We’re not going to try to write you up for anything tonight. Not this time. Just listen for a minute.”

Mahmud didn’t get what the cop fucker was babbling about. Everything was messed up. The Volvo outside. His chances of getting away: minimal.

“We know what you’re up to. But we need more information. We need someone on the inside. Guys like me can go in and do swift gigs,
but we’re not let in for real. You’re a good guy. Your dad cares about you. You’ve got sisters you can help. You don’t want to get sent back in. Come on, Mahmud, you didn’t like the slammer, now did you? Just think about what your old man would say.”

Mahmud stared straight ahead, refused to meet the cop fucker’s eye.

“Pork your mother.”

The guy seemed unfazed. Went on, “We’re not unreasonable. We can forget what we’ve got on you so far. I could arrest you now and you’d get two years just for the grams you’ve got in your pocket. And I’ve got solid evidence for two more drug-related charges. You’d get eight years at least, you know that. But if you work with us, we’ll just strike all that from the record. The only thing we want . . .”

“Are you fucking deaf or what?” This had to end. Mahmud was gonna take the asshole’s head, shove it into the gearshift, and then book it. It was worth a try.

“Calm down, Mahmud. Just listen for a second. We need you. We’ll drop the stuff we have on you. And the only thing we want is for you to meet us now and then and tell us what’s happening.”

This: totally loco. They seriously thought he was gonna become a rat. Shit. man, they weren’t sane, the popo-pussies.

“You playin’ me? You think I’m a snitch? Never.”

Alex sounded disappointed. “You should consider it. It’s not about snitching. Not at all. We keep everything clean. No one would ever know. But I won’t keep you any longer. Think about it. Don’t do anything stupid, now. I’m going to get into the car right there.”

The cop put one hand on the door handle, held out his other hand. “Here, take my card.”

Mahmud ignored him.

The brass named Alex left it on the backseat.

“Call me if you change your mind.”

“Forget it.”

“Take a few days, think it over. Otherwise, the next time we meet will be when I interrogate you in custody.
Capice
?” Alex didn’t wait for an answer. He got out of the car. Turned around before he slammed the door shut. “One more thing. If news of our little chat leaks out for any reason, we’ll come get you. Right away.”

The cop climbed into the Volvo. Its engine revved.

Mahmud remained sitting for a few minutes in the dark. Picked up the card. It just said
ALEXANDER WREN, ENGINEER
, and a cell-phone number. Nice cover. He rolled down the window. Tossed out the card.

White Room would be open a little while longer, but he didn’t have the energy to go there. What if Dijma was a narc too? Impossible. Dijma felt about as real as only an Albanian could.

He was a loser. Apparently not even the 5-0 thought he was a real G. At the same time: who was he standing up for, really? The ones who’d forced him into this shit by exploiting the fact that he loved his
abu
and sister.

Mahmud texted Dijma. Asked him to come pick up the gear himself. The Albanian met him outside the Royal Library. Dijma was not surprised when Mahmud explained that the asshole who was supposed to do the deal’d started some shit over the price. Mahmud said he’d thrown him out. Mahmud accepted 250 big ones in unfolded thousand-kronor bills. Immediately, everything felt better. Fuck, maybe he should take a turn down to White Room after all. Check if Rob, Javier, and the bitches were still there.

Down among the champagne bottles, it was like the Wild West. Brat players with French-cuff shirts and more wax in their hair than Mahmud used in three months were dousing one another with bubbly. As soon as Mahmud’d had a seat, Rob held out a tin of tobacco. Mahmud peeked below the lid: a nice little pile of C. He went into the bathroom. Did a line. Two hundred and fifty thousand—he was feeling better and better. Okay, it wasn’t just his money, but what the hell, he had to relax a little after that turn with the cop.

Back out in the crowd. The dance floor was packed. The spotlights were pumping colors all over the room. The Eurotechno was pounding in time to the girls’ arms in the air. This was it. Javier’d picked up some chick. Rob was buttering up a juicy morsel of his own. She gazed into his eyes. Mahmud wondered what kind of sweet lies he was spinning.

Two chicks helped themselves to the final drops of Grey Goose vodka. Mahmud winked at one of them. Yelled over the music, “Hey, sweetie. Let’s have some bubbly instead.” Unclear if they heard what he said. But three minutes later he was back at the table with the flyest bottle of pink champagne. Then they definitely got it. He poured for them. They toasted him. He didn’t drink. But they smiled. The chick he’d winked at was the prettiest he’d seen since Lindsay Lohan. Bleached hair that looked like angel-spun cotton candy. Big doe eyes. A gray top with puffed sleeves. She downed her glass. Mahmud poured
more for her. Whispered in her ear: “Do you want to have more fun, real dynamite?”

She laughed. Their hands touched, Mahmud gave her the Redline baggie. When she and her friends pushed past him in the booth, he pinched her butt.

The angel-honey came back five minutes later. Pupils like mechanical pencil lead. Sneezed into her hand. Smiled at him. Mahmud, the king. Tonight, he was gonna score a hat trick. Ha-ha, hat trick!

They were already sucking face in the taxi on their way out to his crib. Her hand inside his pants. Back and forth. He went crazy, wanted to put it in. But unnecessary to pick a fight with the driver.

The rain outside felt clean. The girl’s name was Gabrielle. Her jeans hugged her legs and went down over her black heels like drainpipes. She staggered, wasted.

They tumbled into the apartment. He didn’t want to turn the lights on—embarrassing how messy and nasty the place was. She took his cock already in the hall. Started sucking. No unnecessary foreplay and cutesy shit. Just the way he liked it.

He was about to come. His breathing grew heavier. Gabrielle noticed. She tried to avoid him jizzing in her mouth.

Mahmud murmured, “Come on, keep it in.”

She nodded, his cock moved along with the motions of her head.

They lay down on the bed. He rested for a few minutes. Turned some music on.

Took her jeans off. Kept her top on. Put his cock in.

Gabrielle groaned like in a porno. They went at it for a while. Mahmud slapped her ass.

“Put a condom on, okay?”

“Nah, I’ll come on your back.”

That seemed fine with her. Mahmud assumed she was on the pill. He kept going, wham-bam. Came after a few minutes, didn’t bother pulling out. Unclear if she even noticed. Sweet—second leg out of three done. The guys would hear about this tomorrow.

Gabrielle went to the bathroom. When she came back, he’d served up a line on a CD case. “I’m cool, I don’t need any,” she said. “Could you call a cab?”

What the fuck was this bullshit? He still had one more thing left
to do. Had to complete the hat trick. Spraying in her asshole was the grand finale.

He leaned over her. Began to kiss her neck, up toward her face. Let his lips move over her eyes, cheeks, forehead. He licked her ear, caressed her hair, tits, ass.

“Come on, baby, be nice. Feels good, right?”

They lay down on the bed again. He was gonna fucking enter her, that’s all there was to it.

Mahmud took her top off. Her body was hot as hell. He lay down on top of her carefully. He was, like, ten times bigger. Kept kissing her forehead. She closed her eyes. Guided his cock inside her.

Missionary for a few minutes. Then he flipped her over. Pushed his cock toward her asshole.

“No, not there,” she whispered.

“It’s gonna feel so good. I promise.”

He grabbed hold of her ass cheeks. Tried to force his cock in.

“I don’t want it there.” Her voice was high-pitched now.

“Come on, just a quickie.”

Gabrielle wriggled her butt. He grabbed hold of her harder.

“Stop it. I don’t want to.” Her voice jumped up another notch.

It was insane: him, the muscleman, the pussy king, the bitch-fucker—
limp. Ill opportunity, a fine piece of ass on her belly, all he had to do was push it in, do his thing. What the fuck was wrong with him anyway? He let her go. Saw her relax.

“Just stay there, please. You’re so beautiful.”

He got up. Looked down at Gabrielle. Her legs straight on the bed. He had to do this thing. He rummaged through his clothes, his jacket, his wallet, his jeans. Finally he found what he was looking for: a dime bag with a few milligrams left. He put some cocaine on his finger. Rubbed it against his cock. It had to work. He needed to get it up again.

Now.

Niklas held the weapon. Weighed it. Admired the sheen of the metal. Felt like over there, except this weapon’d hardly been used.

Thought back over the past few weeks. The woman at Black & White Inn’d delivered his order. A clean, proper gun: a new Beretta. He test-fired it for the first time in a wooded area in Sätra. Twenty rounds into a couple of beer cans lined up on rocks. Real Baghdad feel in the middle of the Stockholm autumn. He had to learn the weapon. The safety, the slide, the rear sight, the hammer’s release, the clamping pin, the sear, the magazine catch, and so on. Him and the Beretta: they would become one. As it should be.

Followed by training at home. The slide motion for this specific piece should be automatic, embedded in his elbow movement. He turned the lights off, practiced in the dark, practiced in baggy clothes, without clothes, walking, lying down, running. Left, right, right, left.

All you fucking wife-beaters—Operation Magnum’s offensive begins now. This is your nightmare, and it’s coming for you. Go, hide—if you can.

Today was the day. He was going to eliminate the first target. Mats Asshole Strömberg.

The months’d passed by quickly, yielding good results surveillance-wise. The only bad part: Niklas’d been thrown out of his place in Aspudden. The illegal broker fucker’d gotten hold of another apartment and Niklas’d had to pay up. A bigger hit than expected, considering that he’d gotten rid of the Audi and bought a Ford instead. He wouldn’t compromise with safety. But the money would run out in a few days. What should he do? The basic principle remained: war has a cost.

His relationship with Mom’d only gotten worse. He couldn’t handle being in touch. She’d called, texted, even sent a letter. After their fight a few months ago: it didn’t feel right. Mom’d been humiliated for half
her life. Still, she didn’t seem to want to understand the importance of what he was about to do today. Her way of thinking was so twisted. But therein probably lay the answer. That so many women went along with men beating, repressing, harassing, terrorizing them. That they didn’t defend themselves, didn’t do something about it, didn’t fight back. Niklas was familiar with the hard-core feminists’ arguments even though he’d stopped surfing their pathetic websites after the Biskops-Arnö incident. It was about societal structures, gendered power, patriarchy, built-in patterns that every single individual apparently had to ape.

Niklas’d stuck the GPS location device under Mats Strömberg’s car on a night in October. Since then, he’d followed the guy’s driving route like a fucking map freak. Reminded him of a British sergeant in DynCorp. The guy’s greatest pleasure was maps—seriously. When the others listened to their MP3 players, flipped through porn magazines, or played poker, Sergeant Jacobs read maps with incredible intensity. But shit, that dude was sharp in the field. Once he’d studied an area, he knew it better than he knew his own gun.

On the way home, Strömberg often passed by a bodega in Sundbyberg. Parked his car. Got out, hung out in the bodega for fifteen minutes. At first, Niklas didn’t understand what the guy was up to. One day, he followed him in. Mats Strömberg wouldn’t recognize him, anyway. The deal: gambling. The guy seemed to drop the household kitty on horses and sports, etc. And Niklas began to sense a pattern. It was on the nights that bets were decided that Mats Strömberg found it necessary to take things out on his wife.

When October grew chillier, Strömberg draped himself with a checked scarf, tied it like a fucking fogie—with a simple knot and most of the fabric hanging flat down against his chest. His jean jacket was exchanged for a butt-ugly green nylon jacket. The leather shoes for a pair of boots that looked military-issue. And it was then, in October, that Niklas was able to establish another pattern: the first Monday of every month, Strömberg met a few friends at a pub by Mariatorget. He knew now: same pub, about the same time, same dudes. The pics that Niklas’d snapped were clear. Three months in a row.