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Authors: Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

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Martha examined the inside of the collar but, however carefully she looked, she couldn’t see any letters or initials. Finally she unzipped the pouch on the collar to see if she could see a
name tag inside. Then something suddenly fell onto the parquet floor. Rake bent down, picked up the pieces that had dropped on the floor and placed them on a plate.

‘Doggie snacks in the collar, that’s practical!’

2

‘Doggie snacks? I’m not sure about that,’ said Martha and she felt one of the little pieces. ‘If that were the case, the dogs in Las Vegas would hardly
have any teeth left. Feel them, they’re hard as rock.’

They all leaned forward, felt the tiny objects and held them up against the light. Silence followed, then gasps could be heard.

‘My God, they look like diamonds. Real diamonds!’

Outside the hotel window, the city lights glowed. Advertising signs flashed on and off, and neon rushed around in colourful tracks. And the League of Pensioners had just
stumbled across a heap of diamonds.

All five of them stared at the gemstones, put them in the palms of their hands and stroked them very gently. Before reluctantly putting the diamonds back on the coffee table.

‘We don’t know where they come from, or who owns them. Either we go to the police or we can donate them to the Robbery Fund,’ said Martha, who looked after the interests of the
joint robbery fund. That was where they kept their stolen money. They also made donations to needy institutions and less fortunate members of society from the accounts.

‘But the police . . . what if we handed them in and they thought we had pinched the diamonds? No, it would be better if we took care of the gemstones ourselves,’ Anna-Greta said,
having worked in a bank all her life. ‘We’ll sell them and transfer the proceeds to the robbery fund. All additional income is welcome.’

They all nodded in agreement. Despite them all being around about eighty years of age, they worked now more than ever. They could have named their robbery fund ‘The Revolving Door’
because the money came in and went out again almost straight away. As soon as the old friends had stolen something, they gave away the booty. In Las Vegas alone there were almost seven thousand
homeless people and back home in Sweden there were a lot of people in need too. So they had started to save and set a target of accumulating at least five hundred million kronor and letting that
money work for them. The dividends would then be used to pay for geriatric care, culture and other things back home even after they retired from their life of crime. After all, they couldn’t
go on stealing for the rest of their lives.

A week had passed since the remarkable encounter on Hayes Street and Martha and her friends were drinking coffee and munching some tasty chocolate wafers in the hotel suite
that the three women were sharing. Since the meeting with the diamond thieves they had kept a low profile. In fact, they hadn’t even set foot outside the hotel and the receptionist had had to
take little Barbie out himself. The friends understood that the diamonds in the dog collar must be stolen property and the robbers would now be searching for them. Unless, of course, the police had
already locked them up.

‘Can we agree that we should take care of the diamonds ourselves and from now on regard them as our own?’ Martha wondered out loud when they had all drunk their coffee.

‘Absolutely! The diamonds
are
ours!’ the League of Pensioners exclaimed in unison and cheered, because what they liked the very best of all was to steal something that had
already been stolen. In that way it was as if they had been given it. The pile of diamonds lay glistening next to the coffee pot and when the sun shone in through the panoramic window the gemstones
glimmered in colourful cascades of light. Faceted gems, drop-shaped, clear and coloured diamonds. Somebody had owned these gems, but who? In Las Vegas, there were as many diamond shops as there
were hot-dog stands back home in Sweden, so the owners would surely be impossible to trace. It would be best to take the gems home to Sweden, sell them there and put the proceeds into the Robbery
Fund.

That decision must be celebrated! Rake got up and fetched a bottle of champagne and five glasses. He had been a waiter on the cruise ship MS
Kungsholmen
and with a practised and elegant
touch he opened the bottle without the cork hitting any of the others, or the chandelier. And nor did the champagne bubble over the edge of the glasses. No, he was a real pro and not one drop of
champagne was wasted.

‘Well, then, cheers to you all, you crooks!’ said Martha and they all joyfully trumpeted a few bars from
Champagne Galop
before raising their glasses and drinking. A pleasant
atmosphere immediately spread in the room. All five of them were touchingly in agreement and now the diamonds must be smuggled home. In fact, Martha and Brains had already made certain
preparations. The handles of their Zimmer frames were unscrewed and awaiting the stolen loot.

‘Are we really going to hide the diamonds here?’ Christina wondered out loud and put a few of the precious gems in one of the handles. She then shook the Zimmer frame so it rattled.
‘Just listen to that; we could be discovered!’

‘Pah, we simply fill the handles so they don’t rattle, or we could put the diamonds inside our walking sticks instead,’ Brains chipped in. He was the engineer and inventor in
the gang, and now he waved his stick to accompany his idea.

‘Yes, perhaps walking sticks would be better,’ said Martha.

‘OK, we’ll mix the diamonds and gravel in the handle of one of the walking sticks. The other walking sticks we will fill just with gravel. And we’ll pack them so tight that
they won’t rattle. We can put all the walking sticks in a golf bag. That ought to work,’ Brains decided.

‘Oh how clever!’ said Martha. ‘You always have such good ideas.’

‘But the diamonds worry me,’ Christina fretted. ‘I think we ought to travel home tomorrow.’

‘Not before the coup,’ Martha protested. ‘Don’t forget why we’ve come here. We can’t just abandon all our plans simply because we happened to stumble upon a
few gemstones. Even if we include them, we still need millions more for the Robbery Fund. Remember that geriatric care is always in need of more money.’

‘Yes indeed. Nowadays, most things in society need financial support to work properly,’ Anna-Greta agreed.

They fell silent. When society no longer functioned as it should, others must intervene and the League of Pensioners had taken that burden upon themselves. In a world where the rich became even
richer and the poor even poorer, they felt compelled to commit crimes to support the less-fortunate members of society. They were like Robin Hood – stealing from the rich to give to the poor.
For a whole month the friends had been planning to rob a casino in Las Vegas. That would give them lots and lots of money, so a few diamonds was not a sufficient reason to drop the idea.

‘Yes, I suppose we must carry out our plans, then,’ said Brains tentatively. Martha had said they would carry them out tomorrow. She had so many ideas all the time, sometimes it was
hard to keep up. Brains looked around the room. For several months they had played roulette and raked in the equivalent of more than one hundred million kronor, but now it was time to round it off.
They had felt the looks of the security guards. The men muttered into their earphones and stayed close to the tables every time the five of them turned up for the evening’s gambling. They
were beginning to get nervous.
You should never go on too long, or aim too high
, he thought. Brains did a few sums in his head. During the last year, if they counted all of their various
robberies and deceptions, they had collected two hundred and forty million kronor for the Robbery Fund. With the diamonds, they would certainly have reached about three hundred and forty million.
So they were still lacking about one hundred and sixty million before the dividends could finance the donations for geriatric care they had planned, which was why Martha had agreed to
Christina’s idea of robbing casinos. Stealing from a casino was a lot quicker than winning the money at roulette, Martha thought. She was always so impatient.

‘OK, let’s pack this in tonight. We’ll carry out the robbery tomorrow, and then go back to Sweden,’ said Martha.

‘But why should we carry out this giant coup? Isn’t it safer to steal at home in Sweden?’ Brains suddenly asked. He had grown up in the small suburb of Sundbyberg near
Stockholm and, although he knew five languages, he had never lived abroad and felt a bit uncertain so far from home.

‘But my dear friend! We need those hundred and sixty million. What will happen otherwise, when we are too old to commit crimes?’ said Martha. ‘Here we can hit the real jackpot.
Not until our children can live on the dividends from what we have invested with the money we’ve stolen, can we retire for real.’

‘You’ve got big plans, Martha dear,’ Brains sighed.

‘But of course we must go on stealing. The banks pay such poor interest on savings accounts nowadays,’ Anna-Greta added.

‘Yes, that’s true, of course,’ mumbled Brains, who wasn’t particularly versed in financial matters.

‘Well, then, cheers for the Robbery Fund
All Inclusive
,’ Martha said and smiled.

‘All inclusive?’ Rake looked puzzled.

‘Of course. The Robbery Fund must be made larger. Now that welfare has collapsed all over Europe, the Robbery Fund should also cover health care, schooling, other social—’

‘But, Martha, that sounds an awful lot. We mustn’t lose control,’ Brains said, as he was beginning to find it all rather confusing. ‘One thing at a time!’

‘I agree with Brains,’ said Anna-Greta. ‘We can’t start handing out money we don’t have.’

‘Oh yes we can, a lot of countries do that. If they can, so can we! Besides, the casino plot is watertight. We’re going to get lots of money,’ Martha said and threw out her arm
in a foolhardy gesture. Her face creased in the pain. She had completely forgotten that she had overstrained her arm when she had sat half the night in front of one of the slot machines.

Was the casino plan really watertight? The others looked somewhat worriedly at each other and, above all, they looked at Christina. She was somebody who worried about most things and, more than
once, she had put them in awkward situations. She came from Jönköping, had had a strict religious upbringing, and was always hesitant before she dared to do anything new. While they had
been in Las Vegas, her friends had done all they could to build up her self-confidence and they had succeeded only too well. Now she didn’t seem to have any inhibitions at all.

Martha got up and fetched a bucket from the bar. It was full of gravel and sand that she had fetched earlier that day. She determinedly unscrewed the handle of her walking
stick.

‘And as for doing robberies here in Las Vegas . . . well, it’s been a while since we committed a crime,’ Brains tried yet again. He cleared his throat: ‘We’re a bit
rusty. Are you suffering from hubris, Martha, my dear? I mean to say, this isn’t just a little Swedish bank robbery. You want us to carry out a raid in one of the best-guarded casinos in the
world. They have armed guards, CCTV everywhere and—’

‘Now, now, Brains. Just think what a delightful challenge it is!’ exclaimed Martha and she started filling the walking stick with gravel and diamonds. ‘It’ll all work out
all right, you’ll see,’ she went on and gave him an encouraging pat on the cheek. ‘I bet you one hundred thousand dollars we’ll succeed!’

‘Just listen to yourself! You’ve become a compulsive gambler,’ he groaned and looked glumly at his fingernails that were now chewed to bits.

‘A little more coffee, perhaps?’ Martha tried to change the subject. ‘I’ll get some cups, you can open the wafers,’ she said as she got up.

After Martha had served the coffee, she sealed the handle of her walking stick. Then she went to fetch the plan of the casino. Robbing a casino in Las Vegas was not just any old robbery; in that
respect her friends were right. It would be difficult, and it was her duty to support and encourage them.

‘I know we’ve looked at these building plans a thousand times, but as an exercise I think we should try to memorize the layout by tomorrow. Nobody will make any mistakes with a door
or a corridor then,’ she said as she lay out the building plans on the table.

‘You never give up, do you?’ Rake sighed. ‘Do you want us to do a round of gym exercises after coffee too?’

Martha pretended not to hear him. She was admittedly very particular about them all keeping in good condition, but now was not the right occasion for exercising. All their focus must be on the
robbery. It would be a last, but necessary, coup before they left America. They needed the proceeds from their criminal activities. If the League of Pensioners could help people to a better life,
then they would have achieved a great deal. Then she and her friends could give up their criminal activities and live a good life in the years they had left.

The next day they packed all their belongings and prepared themselves for the journey, and followed this with their usual afternoon nap. At dinner time the mood was undeniably
a little tense, but they all put on a brave face – as brave as they possibly could. After a fortifying meal with lobster and champagne, they all felt well prepared for the evening’s
adventure.

Brains and Rake put on their stylish black suits, while Martha, Christina and Anna-Greta dressed in silk and tulle, and wrapped themselves in long, wide shawls. In suite 831 there was a smell of
perfume and shaving lotion and when the zips of the long dresses needed to be pulled up, Brains and Rake hurried to assist.

Brains looked uncomfortable, but he always did when he couldn’t wear his usual 1950s trousers and checked flannel shirt. He felt so uncomfortable dressed up in a dark suit with a tie and a
white handkerchief in his top pocket that he’d blown his nose on the handkerchief and then put it back in place, which made Martha quickly find a new one for him. The charmer Rake was right
at home in his elegant clothes and carried his suit with a straight posture and a confident smile. Christina was wearing a light-blue dress with shoulder straps and a large pink hat, while
Anna-Greta strode across the floor in her rustling evening gown which was so old-fashioned that she looked as if she came from another – indefinable – century. She wasn’t
interested in clothes and she really didn’t care what she looked like. If she could, she would have put on an old tracksuit. Or even better, she would be happiest the day somebody invented a
clothes spray so you only had to spray yourself and you’d be clothed.

BOOK: The Little Old Lady Who Struck Lucky Again!
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