Easy Money (38 page)

The Surveillance Group has gathered information that points to the fact that an internal conflict has developed within the Organization. One man within the Organization, active as Radovan Kranjic’s personal bodyguard, has informed the Surveillance Group’s sources that a “cleaning out” of certain persons within the Organization has taken place. Mrado Slovovic (described in report number 7) and Nenad Korhan have been “demoted” and removed from their positions in coat-check racketeering, cocaine sales, and the sex trade in Stockholm. Kranjic has decided that these two are to be moved down in the hierarchy and that their duties and areas of responsibility will be taken over by others. The Surveillance Group’s working hypothesis is that this has all been done in the interest of eliminating threats against Kranjic.

The Surveillance Group believes that the murders of Petrovic and Lukic are connected to the internal conflict described above. X observed that in the days leading up to the murders, the brothel in Hallonbergen was repeatedly visited by an unknown man. The man also contacted the missing prostitute as well as met her outside the brothel on at least one occasion. What took place between them is unclear, since X was not permitted to remain close to the prostitute during their interaction. The man is swarthy, dark-skinned, and around thirty years old. Since March 13 of this year, the prostitute has not been in touch with X, which is why the police have reported her missing. The Surveillance Group is working with several theories as to the motives behind the murders. One is that Kranjic, because of the internal conflict, wants to prevent Korhan from breaking out on his own and starting new prostitution businesses. Another theory is that Korhan and Slovovic committed the murders together in order to destabilize Kranjic’s business empire.

The Surveillance Group suggests the following measures be taken in response to the report presented above:

1. Continue searching for the thirty-year-old man who met the prostitute on several occasions.
   
2. Continue searching for the missing prostitute.
   
3. Search for the rest of the women who are believed to have been active as prostitutes in the brothel.
   
4. Search for the men who are believed to have purchased sexual services in the brothel.
   
5. Continue the surveillance work, with a focus on Slovovic and Korhan.
   

Regarding Budget for the measures, see Attachment 2.

Criminal Investigation Department
Superintendant Björn Stavgård
Special Investigator Stefan Krans

Jorge,
qué
angst. Been in bed for a week—like sick or something.

Abdulkarim’d asked, “Ey, fuck’s up with you, Jorge? Fever, or what? You gotta keep us rollin’.”

He’d run through that night over and over again. Replayed the events in his mind. Play/rewind—play/rewind. Sometimes, frame by frame. Like a video producer.

The shotgun shots’d been unplanned, dangerous. Dumb as hell.

Went over the situation one more time. Hopefully, he hadn’t left any DNA on the spot. Had just gone in, popped the Yugo pigs, plucked the laptop and the cell phone. Hadn’t touched anything with his hands, even held the door handle with his sweater. Not been in a fight or torn up skin or blood. Had a hat on the whole time—probably hadn’t lost any hairs. Should be clean.

The john would probably keep his mouth shut. If he exposed Jorge, he’d be exposing his own habits. No one else in the apartment’d seen him; the whore in the other room hadn’t even looked up. Had anyone in the area seen him? At four in the morning? The cops would go door-to-door. Ask every neighbor in all of Hallonbergen. There was a risk that someone’d seen him. But that risk was
pequeñito.
His description would fit thousands of others.

Should be tight.

Footprints were a possibility; the weather’d been sticky. On the other hand, Jorge’d filled his shoes with rocks and dumped them in Edsviken Bay first thing the morning after.

The big danger: that Fahdi would start wondering. Check his shotgun. Discover residue or that shells were missing. Make a connection with the latest front-page news in the underworld.

Everyone was speculating. Theorizing. Analyzing. Abdulkarim suspected some john hadn’t been able to pay and was scared of being exposed. Freaked and cleared out the only ones who could mess up his life. Fahdi suspected other Yugos. There were rumors about internal disputes. Division in the bar Mafia. JW suspected other gangs. Speculated about market divisions within the city’s organized-crime scene to calm the war between the HA and the Bandidos.

Jorge kept a low profile. It was one thing to live on the lam after a nonviolent escape from a prison sentence for a drug conviction. Totally different to be on the run for a double homicide.

His hope: that no trails led to him.

Nevertheless: Jorge wished he could send Radovan a greeting. Just so the Yugo’d know who was after him and why. Message: This is just the beginning, repayment for whatever you’ve done with Nadja and what you did to me.

A stroke of good bloodbath juju—the laptop he’d grabbed’d survived his plug pulling. The battery’d kicked in. A stroke of bad bloodbath juju—log-in info was needed to rouse it from sleep mode: control/alt/delete, user name and password. Jorge couldn’t get in. Needed help.

Cock.

Maybe he could find some hacker who could do it—break into Stockholm’s now most wanted computer.

But not today. Today, he was gonna see Paola.

On his way to see her, the first time since he’d busted out. Longest period they’d ever gone without seeing each other. She’d visited him at Österåker a couple of months before he cut loose. Complained that he’d gotten cocky. Didn’t she understand the environment he was in?

Jorge didn’t dare boost cars anymore. More scared of police checkpoints than ever. Before he’d shot the pimp and the brothel madam—if the cops collared him, he’d be sent right back inside. Hardly get any add-on for the break. He’d kept it so clean, after all.
Sin
violence,
sin
crime,
sin
anything to pin on him. The worst that could happen was that he had to sit out the rest of his time without the possibility of parole. But now, after the shots’d been fired in Hallonbergen, it was a different story. If they got him, he could be sent away for life. His earlier fear of being busted appeared ridiculous. Now it was serious.

Still, when Paola’d texted him, he hadn’t been able to stay home any longer. He needed the calm. Needed the connection with his other half.

How’d Paola gotten his cell phone number? He didn’t know of anyone who could’ve given it to her. Possibly Sergio. In that case, it was a danger. She couldn’t have his number, for her own sake. He had to get a new one.

He rode public transportation. Even bought a ticket. No more turnstile hurdling.

Got off at the Liljeholmen subway stop.

The concrete station had been renovated. According to Jorge: without improvement. The train he’d been riding on had Norsborg as its final destination and he needed to go toward Fruängen. Had to wait five minutes for the transfer.

He stood at the end of the platform. Liked the area. The few yards the train often didn’t reach when it stopped. A wasteland, an abandoned appendix, a solitary, forgotten slice of the public transit jungle. Alkies pissing on the tracks, gangs juxing kids for their phones, couples making love, rats and pigeons making shit. Most of all, sprayers attacking the cement gloom with their colorful tags. The subway sentinels didn’t care; the families with small kids stood in the middle of the platform, so they wouldn’t have to run if a short train rolled in.

The train to Fruängen pulled in. Jorge got on.

The driver’s voice bellowed over the sound system: “This train is going to Fruängen.” Jorge recognized the voice, the chill African accent; he’d ridden with this driver before. Jorge laughed out loud. Thought, Is Daddy Boastin driving the cars? Subway man sounded just like the rapper.

Hägersten—Västertorp, to be exact, was approaching. He glimpsed Störtloppsvägen near the public pool. Soon he’d get to see Paola.

The working-class area was idyllic compared to Jorge’s Sollentuna hood. The public pool, in yellow brick with marble sculptures out front, lay like a cozy meeting spot in the middle of it all.

He walked toward Paola’s apartment building.

Hit the key code she’d texted him.

The elevator didn’t work. He took the stairs, thought about JW. Good guy. A friend. Jorge felt close to him. Had opened up to him a few days ago and talked about his debt of gratitude. Told the upper-class slick, “I’ve never been saved by anyone before. I would’ve died out there.” He could tell that JW’d been moved. “If you hadn’t come.”

He reached the top floor.

Waited a few breaths.

Rang the doorbell.

And then there she was. Over a year since they’d last seen each other. Tear in her eye. More beautiful than he remembered. Heftier.

They hugged/embraced/cried.

She smelled good.

They had a seat in the kitchen on her wooden chairs. Two posters on the wall: Che Guevara on one and an abstract painting by Servando Cabrera Moreno on the other.

Paola put water on to boil for tea.

Jorge thought her hair gleamed. Black as coal, darker than his, even though his was dyed. He saw her face anew. There were similarities with their father. But something was wrong. Even though the tears’d dried, she seemed sad.

“How’s Mama?” The Chilean accent stronger than usual, normal
s
sounds, a softer tone than Spanish Spanish.

“As usual. Her shoulders hurt. Wonders what you’re doing, and why.”

She poured water into two mugs. Dipped a tea bag in one.

“You can tell her I feel wonderful and am doing what I gotta do.”

“Whattya mean ‘gotta do’? You’re intelligent; you could’ve finished your time and then started studying.”

She fished out the tea bag. Dunked it in the other mug. Was enough to at least add some color to the water.

Jorge thought she did everything so slowly.

“Cut it out, Paola. Let’s not fight. I make my choices. Everyone can’t live like you. I love you; you know that. Tell Mama I said so, too.”

“I accept your choices. But you’re hurting Mama; you’ve got to understand that. She thought you were gonna get it together after school. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t understand your world. She gets sad anyway. Can’t you see her?”

“I can’t now. I have to get my life in order. Things aren’t safe now. Nothing’s safe.”

They let the subject drop. Paola sat quietly for a minute.

Then she told him about her studies. Her life: a boyfriend who wasn’t working out, involvement in the literature society, friends who were gonna study abroad in Manchester. A well-organized life. A normal life. For Jorge, it was exotic. She asked Jorge about his curly hair, dark skin color, crooked nose. He laughed.

“You already know the answer. I’m living on the run. Didn’t you recognize me?”

She smiled.

In Jorge’s head: flashbacks. Him and her at the Liseberg amusement park in Gothenburg when they’d visited Mama’s sister in Hisingen. Spent a day in Gothenburg. He, maybe seven years old, Paola maybe twelve. They wanted to ride on the Flumride, the number-one attraction, and had to lie about his age in order for him to be let on. Paola’s arms around him in the plastic boat that looked like a hollowed-out tree trunk. Slowly upward. In his ear, in Spanish, so the others in the log wouldn’t understand, she whispered, “If you don’t promise to be good, I’ll let you go.” Jorge, terrified. But at the same time not. He thought he understood. Turned around. Paola’s smile—she was kidding. Jorge laughed.

“You got so quiet. Are you mad?” Paola asked.

“When we were at Liseberg, remember? We rode the Flumride.”

Suddenly, her voice was serious.

“Jorgelito, who’re you running away from, really?”

A moment of silence.

“Whattya mean? The Five-Oh, of course.”

“A few months ago, I got threatened at the university, and it wasn’t by the police.”

Jorge’s eyes blackened—not the effect of his contacts.

Hate.

“I know, Paola. That’ll never happen again. The person who did that is gonna be punished. I swear on Papa’s grave.”

She shook her head. “You don’t have to punish anyone.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t live with myself if the people who threatened you don’t pay. I’ve been fucked all my life. Rodriguez, SS hags, cops. And now the Yugo fuckers. At Österåker, I learned to lay low when necessary but to stand up when it really mattered. I am somebody. Did you know that? I make mad cash. I’m on my way up. I’ve got a career. A plan.”

“You should think again.”

“I don’t want to talk to you about this. Can’t we just chill?”

The tension evaporated as quickly as it’d flared up.

They chatted about other stuff.

Time raced by. Jorge didn’t dare stay too long. They finished their tea. Paola refilled the mugs. A new bag this time. Topped it with a little cold water so Jorge’d be able to drink right away.

There was a white IKEA dresser in the hall that Jorge recognized from the apartment they’d grown up in on Malmvägen. High-heeled leather boots, sneakers, loafers, and a pair of Bally winter boots in rows.

“You can afford those?” Jorge pointed at the Bally boots.

“My boyfriend the asshole gave them to me.”

“Why?”

Paola smiled again. “You’re not too quick,
junior.
Can’t you tell? I can’t walk around in heels. I’m gonna be a mama.”

The subway usually lulled him to sleep. Not now. He was speeded.

J-boy was gonna be an uncle.

Sooooooo ill.

Needed time to digest.

Had to slam those swine before Paola had the baby.

Had to haul in a massive harvest before Paola gave birth.

Her child was gonna get all the advantages a flush uncle could give.

Her child was gonna get an uncle who’d punished those who’d hurt the Salinas Barrio family.