Never Fuck Up: A Novel (68 page)

Even more information: sums that were paid into company accounts without any indication of the identity of the recipient, sums that were paid out as loan repayment without any documents supporting the existence of a loan, dividends made out to unidentified stockholders without records of such a decision in the minutes from the shareholders’ meeting. The document piles contained a lot of oddities. Hägerström saw things that Thomas didn’t understand, even after Hägerström’d tried to explain.

Time was running out. Should he say something about Bolinder’s party? Maybe Hägerström would think of a reason to go there that he hadn’t thought of. But no, that was just too much. They’d have to continue tomorrow instead. Åsa wouldn’t be happy, but that’s just how it had to be.

Thomas went to the kitchen to put on some coffee. When he came back out, Hägerström was sitting down on the couch again. Was staring into space with an empty gaze.

“How’s it going, H.? You getting tired? I made coffee.”

“Aren’t you leaving in half an hour?”

“Yup. And what about you? You going to Half Way Inn again tonight?”

“Not impossible.”

Thomas looked at him. Weird, if you thought about it—it was five-thirty on New Year’s Eve and they hadn’t even talked about how Hägerström would be spending the evening until now.

Hägerström smiled. Slowly—the corners of his mouth slid up like on a cartoon character. He remained sitting like that for a few seconds.

“What is it?”

“I just found a very strange payment.”

Thomas looked at the piece of paper Hägerström was holding in his hand. “What? Where?”

Hägerström remained sitting calmly. “It’s a payment from a foreign account to Dolphin Leasing AB for over two million kronor, made in April of this year. And that wouldn’t be strange in and of itself, but I checked the IBAN number on the account from which the payment was made.”

Thomas interrupted him, “What’s i-ban?”

Hägerström spoke slowly, almost as if he wanted to keep the suspense going. “It’s the international bank account number, abbreviated to IBAN. It’s used to identify a bank account for a transaction between different countries.” Hägerström played with the piece of paper he was holding. “And the first thing I noticed was that the IBAN number for this payment denoted an account on the Isle of Man. What do you know about the Isle of Man?”

“Not much. I think it’s outside England. Isn’t it one of those tax havens?”

“Yes, and more than that, it’s a secrecy haven too. Companies with accounts on the Isle of Man usually want to hide something. It’s difficult to find out who they belong to because there is complete bank secrecy.”

“Very suspicious.”

Hägerström kept on smiling. “You can say that again. But so far it’s not any shadier than a lot of the other stuff we’ve seen. But, later, Dolphin Leasing paid an invoice to a company registered in Sweden called Intelligal AB for the exact same sum of money as the payment from the Isle of Man. The account number on that invoice is an account with the Skandia Bank. I recognize those kinds of accounts. It’s a private account.”

He let his last word hang in the air.

Thomas got worked up. Analyzed, connected the dots in his head: a large sum is paid from a secret offshore account to a company in
Sweden that then pays an invoice to another company whose account is actually held by a private person.

Thomas’s big question: “Whose Skandia Bank account is it?”

“Guess.”

Two hours later. Thomas called Åsa and apologized—he was going to be super late. He tried to explain. Something’d come up at work that was just too important. She said she understood, but still, she didn’t. You could tell by her voice.

He and Hägerström’d gone through as many documents as they’d had time for. Tried to find information about who or what company the account on the Isle of Man belonged to. They couldn’t find anything. They just had to accept it—the shit wasn’t here. They saw the payment, the connection to Rantzell. But the essential part was missing—who’d paid.

“What we should really do is search Bolinder’s house,” Hägerström said.

Thomas looked at him quizzically. “But we don’t have probable cause to believe that any crime was committed by him yet, do we?”

“No, but one of the auditors who I scared a little told me that Bolinder is a control freak. Apparently, he saves copies of everything at his house. And he meant
everything:
every single document that has been issued is, according to the auditor, filed in Bolinder’s private archive. That old fox doesn’t leave anything to chance.”

Thomas felt a lurch in his gut. He knew what he had to do.

Tonight.

*  *  *

The apartment felt overstuffed with people. But really, only Mahmud, Rob, Javier, Babak, and two of Javier’s buds were there. On the stereo: some monster hit by Akon. On the TV: MTV on mute. On the table: a bottle of bubbly in an ice bucket, a transparent baggie filled with weed, and Rizla papers.

Mahmud should have felt overjoyed—his boys, the music, the smokes, the champagne. The mood. New Year’s Eve was gonna be top of the line. They were hitting the town later, were gonna snort the snort, party the party, nail bitches—rock the piranha race straight up. Hump in the New Year so hard the chicks wouldn’t be able to walk till Saint Knut’s Day, or whatever that Sven shit was called.

Still: he’d wanted to do the hit against the Yugos and the old pervs. Jorge’s story’d got him going. Niklas’s planning’d felt legit, like a real war. There was gonna be an attack, a massive guerrilla ambush. A hard-core invasion—on Million Program terms.

But Niklas’d disappeared. Mahmud was angry as hell. The elite soldier guy could go fuck himself—he wasn’t so elite after all.

He went into the kitchen. Brought out the champagne glasses.

Babak smiled. “Ey, brother, you’re doing good. Not just an ice bucket, I see you got yourself real glasses now too.”

Mahmud popped a bottle. It was only seven o’clock, but he didn’t plan on waiting with the bubbly.

Rob laughed. “You stacking them bills, or what?”

Mahmud nodded. Poured for the guys.

“I’m working double. But fuck, man, not for much longer.”

“Why, man? You deal, you watch the whores. I think it sounds like a perfect combo, like Big Mac & Co.”

“Cut it, Twiggy. I’m gonna quit the whores. That shit’s wack. Skank wack, that’s all it is.”

Babak set his glass down. Looked at him.

“
Habibi,
I don’t get you. You get to work with easy pussy all day.
You can do whatever you want to them. Double team, triple team, hat trick.”

“Man, I don’t wanna hear it. Hookers, that’s some loser shit.”

Babak shook his head. Turned to Rob instead. Mahmud pretended like he didn’t hear—thought about Gabrielle instead, the chick he’d banged this fall when things’d gotten embarrassing. He was gonna forget that now. Party. Hopefully get between the sheets. With someone who wanted it.

The night rolled on. The clock struck eight. Babak was holding court. Bullshitting about new blow schemes, ideas for CIT robberies, bouncers he knew downtown, the new Audi R8 super car that he’d test-driven before Christmas.

Robert laughed louder and louder. The bubbles were starting to work their magic. Javier and his buddies were talking amongst themselves, half the time in Spanish.

Mahmud heard a sound that stood out from the general din. Not from the music. Not from anyone’s cell phone. Not from outside the window. He understood what it was: someone was ringing his doorbell. He got up.

The speakers were blasting top-shelf Timbaland.

Babak yelled over the music, “Who’s coming?”

Mahmud shrugged. “No idea. Maybe one of all those bitches you’re talkin’ about.”

He peered through the peephole. The hallway outside was dark. He couldn’t see shit.

It was eight o’clock on New Year’s Eve—who wouldn’t turn the lights on in the stairwell? He remembered how Wisam Jibril’d shown up at his dad’s apartment on that summer morning.

He opened the door.

A dude. It was still dark. Mahmud tried to see who it was. The person was pretty tall, shaved head.

He said, “I’m back.
Jalla,
Mahmud, let’s do this.”

Mahmud recognized the voice.

“Yo man. Where the fuck’ve you been?”

Niklas stepped into the apartment. He looked different. Shaved head. Thin beard. Darker eyebrows than the last time they’d seen each other.

Mahmud repeated the question.

“Where’ve you been? We were supposed to do the thing tonight. You fucked it, man.”

“Don’t use that tone with me.” Niklas sounded pissed. Then he grinned. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I’m back. Let’s do this thing. Now.
Jalla
.”

A half hour later. The mood was completely different from when the bubbly’d been on the table and the stereo’d been jacking up the atmosphere. Serious, calm, focused. At the same time: ready to roll, pumped, sharp. At first, Mahmud hadn’t understood what Niklas was talking about. But when he understood, it felt good. Damn good. They were gonna go through with the attack. As long as his homeboys were into it—it would be the phattest shit ever. They kicked out Javier’s friends. Their swagger sagged, but Mahmud offered them the bag of weed to take with them. They still looked sulky, but accepted. There were lots of other parties in town tonight.

Babak, Javier, and Robert were sitting on the couch. Niklas and Mahmud, each on a chair. Mahmud was still a little buzzed. But in a few hours, he would be on point. The Rizla papers, the cell phones, the champagne, and the glasses’d been put away. Instead: maps, aerial photos taken off the Internet, blueprints, photos of the house. And weapons: the AK-47s, the Glock, and Niklas’s own gun, a Beretta. A goddamned arsenal.

Niklas went over the plan with the boys. Mahmud tried to fill in here and there, mostly for show. Niklas was in charge.

Babak raised his hand, like the good schoolboy he’d never been. “The Yugos that’re running this party, they armed?”

Niklas looked at Mahmud. “Mahmud, you work with these assholes.”

Mahmud cleared his throat. Weird feeling: to sit here with his homies planning the big gig together with a half-crazed mercenary soldier who didn’t seem to give a fuck about the money, who just cared about punishing people. Like in a movie somehow—Mahmud just couldn’t think of which flick.

He tried to answer Babak’s question. “I don’t know for sure. But I’ve never seen them pack heat. I think some of them have gear like that, maybe Ratko. But why, really? The whores just need a good slap to be put in their place. The johns usually don’t pull any shit. And it’s not
exactly like they’re expecting the SWAT
blattes
from Alby to make an entrance, right?”

The guys laughed. Babak smiled, said, “Shit, man. The SWAT
blattes
, that’s us.” The mood lightened.

Robert said, “The Yugos are on the decline, I’ve always said so, right?” The boys relaxed. Even Niklas cracked a smile.

At around ten o’clock, they got up. Packed a bag and put it in Mahmud’s car: the weapons and the bolt cutters. They divided up in different cars. Niklas directed them to Gösta Ekman Road in Axelsberg. Parked outside. It was deserted. Everyone who wanted to be somewhere at ten o’clock on New Year’s Eve’d already made sure to get there.