Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All (14 page)

I
t was surprisingly easy to get Hitman Anders to understand what he was supposed to say to the journalist and why. What was more, he even said what he was supposed to, plus a little nonsense too, but that was just how it went with him. Every time he was about to start saying something truly crazy, Johanna Kjellander had time to interrupt and supply her own version of matters.

The newspaper
Expressen
had sent the same reporter and photographer as they had two and a half years earlier. They arrived just two hours after being offered an exclusive interview with the hitman who had found Jesus and was now about to start a church. Neither of them looked anywhere near as nervous this time.

During the interview, Hitman Anders expounded upon the glory in giving rather than taking, even though he admitted that he and no one else had cheated parts of the underworld out of money. And that it had happened in the second-most ghastly way possible.

“
Second-
most?” the reporter wondered.

Well, in many cases the criminals had commissioned straight-out contract killings, and paid in advance. The only way this could have been more ghastly was if the murders had actually been committed. But, of course, they never were. The money meant for that purpose had instead been handed out to the needy, while the murderer who had quit murdering hadn't kept a single öre
for himself (except for a few comparatively minor expenditures in the form of communion wine
and . . . communion wine). Incidentally, more donations were pending!

As luck would have it, the reporter asked for the names of those who had contracted Hitman Anders for hits. That gave the him the chance to remember to say that he didn't want to say, because he prayed for them every night and would welcome them into the fold of his newly formed church, where he promised to introduce them to Jesus Christ, who, in turn, would take them into his arms.

“Hallelujah! Hosanna! Oh, me, oh, my,” Pastor Anders exclaimed, raising both hands to Heaven, upon which he received an elbow in the side from the priest.

This was no time to go off the rails: one crucial item remained. Hitman Anders seemed to have forgotten what it was. The priest had to remind him. “And also you have taken certain measures,” she said.

“I have?” Hitman Anders asked, lowering his arms. “Yes, I have! I have made sure that the names of all those who commissioned murders and broken limbs will be made public, along with evidence, in case I'm run over in the street or shot in the forehead or found hanged in an apparent suicide, or if I should happen to depart this life prematurely in any other way.”

“You mean if you die, the world will know who hired you as a hitman once upon a time and . . . Will we also learn who the intended victims were?”

“Of course! In Heaven we have no secrets from one another.”

The priest thought that the hitman was expressing himself in such a nutty fashion that it almost sounded good. And
Expressen
's reporter continued to appear interested.

“So you're afraid that the underworld is out to get you?”

“Oh, no,” said Hitman Anders. “I can sense inside me that they're all about to become converts. Jesus's love can reach everyone. There is enough for everyone! But if the devil is still riding any one of them, it is important for society . . . something. Hosanna!”

And with that, everything worth saying had been said. The priest thanked the journalists for their time, but now Pastor Anders had to
prepare for his first sermon. “Which is coming up on Saturday, by the way. It will start at five p.m. Free parking and free coffee for all!”

The plan to meet the press again had been two-pronged. It was important, of course, to advertise the Church of Anders before the première. But in addition, the count, the countess, and the rest of the hooligans would learn just what they were in for if they harmed a hair of the priest and the receptionist's pastor.

It was a good plan.

But not good enough.

Because the count and the countess were even angrier than anyone would have thought.

H
e's a clever bastard, that one,” the countess muttered, tossing aside the following day's issue of
Expressen
.

“No. I've known him for almost forty years,” said the count, “and clever is the last thing he is. He has someone doing his thinking for him.”

“The priest?” said the countess.

“Yes. Johanna Kjellander, according to the paper. And that car thief at her side. Per Jansson, if I remember correctly. I ought to have cut off his dick after all. Although it's not too late yet.”

The count and the countess had more authority than anyone else in the darker circles of Greater Stockholm. If anyone were to call for a joint initiative among the more important hoodlums in the capital, it would be the two “nobles” who did the inviting. And that was just what they did.

* * *

Sweden's first and largest general meeting of the criminal element was held in the count and countess's half-empty car dealership, the one in Haninge.

They'd had an extra good sales week at that location. Any illegally
imported, collision-damaged vehicle can be made to look new with a few tricks of the trade. The count and countess did not feel obliged to report what any given vehicle had experienced earlier in its life, or how it was feeling deep down inside. And, after all, cars can't talk, except in the movies.

Ten units of this illegal sort had rolled out of the showroom in the past few days, all for just under sticker price. On none did the airbags work as advertised, but that didn't matter as long as their new owners had the good sense to stick to the road.

A good week, on the whole, if it hadn't been for the reason behind the general meeting they were about to hold.

Incidentally, putting together a relevant list of participants had also taken a few tricks of the trade. After all, there wasn't a master list of who had contracted to have his nearest and dearest maimed or murdered. The notice had to go out by word of mouth via four carefully chosen pubs.

The result was that seventeen men came to the car showroom at the prescribed time, in addition to the count and the countess, who were standing on a podium at the very front.

The podium was actually meant for the finest car in the showroom, but that car had just been sold to the tune of two pounds of top-shelf methamphetamine. It had left behind an excellent stage for the couple, who liked to emphasize that they were a bit above all the others.

The count was second angriest; the countess was angriest. The latter called the meeting to order. “As I see it, the question is not ‘Will Hitman Anders be allowed to live?' it's ‘How will we see to it that he dies?' The count and I have a few ideas.”

A number of the seventeen men at the foot of the podium squirmed. It was just that the contracts that had been made would become public knowledge if the killer who refused to kill got the treatment he deserved. One of the seventeen even dared to argue along those lines (as it happened, he had paid dearly to be rid of both the count and the countess). He took the floor and said that the elim
ination of Hitman Anders might lead to an out-and-out bloodbath in the capital city, and it would be better if they just kept to business as usual without too much infighting.

The count objected, saying it was not in his nature to allow himself to be blackmailed. What he
didn't
say was that he and the countess had succeeded—all on their own—in doing away with the two business competitors whom Hitman Anders and his sidekicks had not offed but had taken payment from, in the form of both money and camper van.

But then another of the seventeen dared to agree with the first man. He hadn't been able to afford to off both the count and the countess; he'd settled for the countess, who in his opinion was the more destructive and unpredictable of the two. He, too, out of sheer survival instinct, had reason to wish Hitman Anders a long life.

A third had paid to have a cousin of the count fall victim to aggravated assault, and that was bad enough. Several other members of the group had taken out contracts of varying degrees against at least eight others in the same group. If any one of them could be called innocent, in a limited sense, it was only because he didn't have enough money to make himself guiltier than he was.

The count and the countess were feared by all. But seventeen strong men at the foot of the podium found the courage, at last, to resist. All of them insisted that it would be best for business to forget about it. Revenge stood in direct opposition to the current working environment. And the working environment was more important.

The countess swore at the seventeen men, calling them spineless insects and other unpleasant things, and making some of them long to be able to pay Hitman Anders once more, as long as he would finish the job this time.

One of the seventeen, however, was pondering whether it wasn't the case that all insects are
de facto
without spines, but he had enough sense not to bring up the matter just then.

The meeting was over in less than twenty minutes. All the big- and
small-time scoundrels involved had had a representative on site. The only one who was missing was the man who'd paid 800,000 kronor to have his neighbor put to death because said neighbor had made a face at his wife. The vengeful and soon destitute man had taken his own life after his wife had left him for the far-too-alive neighbor, with whom she even traveled to the Canary Islands, for the dubious face-making had in fact been a sophisticated form of flirtation.

End result: Hitman Anders would be allowed to remain alive, according to seventeen out of nineteen still-living defrauded defrauders. And he would die, preferably along with Johanna Kjellander and Per Jansson, or maybe Persson, according to the two others.

T
wo days before the formal opening of the Church of Anders, it was time to launch the latest priestly idea—that is, another donation with national uproar as the intended consequence. Taxi Torsten behind the wheel, the priest, the receptionist, and Hitman Anders in a row in the back seat. In the lap of the latter, a carefully wrapped package containing 500,000 kronor and a personal greeting to the recipient.

The tourist season hadn't yet arrived, but the area surrounding the palace in Stockholm is never completely deserted. Above all, the main guard is always standing there, and has been doing so uninterrupted since 1523 (it's not always the same guard, and one has to imagine that the guards were allowed a break when the palace burned down around the turn of the eighteenth century and wasn't rebuilt until fifty years later).

Taxi Torsten was a creative motorist. He veered off Slottsbacken, drove up onto the cobblestones, and slowly cruised up to the soldier who was standing at attention in his dapper dress uniform, a gleaming bayonet on his rifle.

Hitman Anders stepped out and held up his package. “Good day,” he said solemnly. “I am Hitman Anders and I am here to hand over half a million glorious kronor to Her Majesty the Queen and her World Child . . . something . . . Foundation. I've forgotten the name even though we recited it all the way here in the car from . . . Well, it
doesn't matter where we came from. The long and the short of it is that . . .”

“Just hand over the goddamn package,” the receptionist shouted from the car.

But that was easier said than done. The soldier did not accept suspicious packages. But he did press his panic button and start to recite a memorized statement: “He who desires admittance to protected property or who loiters in the vicinity of protected property is bound by law to state his name, birthdate, and place of residence upon the request of any guard who protects said property, and must submit to a bodily search from which letters or other private documents are exempt, and must submit to a search of any vehicle, ship, or aircraft.”

Hitman Anders stood there with his package and stared wide-eyed at the soldier. “Are you feeling okay?” he said. “Can't you just accept this damn thing in the name of Jesus so we can get out of here?”

The soldier at the sentry box took another breath. “In order to ensure that his task is properly executed, the guard of a protected property may also, to the extent necessary, refuse entry, remove, or, if these are not sufficient, temporarily detain a person within or in the vicinity of the protected property . . .”

“Well, you can
try
to detain me, you fucking tin soldier,” Hitman Anders said angrily, as the terrified guard continued with his lesson: “. . . if the person in question infringes any prohibition that is in effect based on any decision according to this law, refuses to give information upon request, or gives information that can reasonably be assumed to be false, refuses to submit to a bodily search, or . . .”

That was about when Hitman Anders shoved the silly soldier aside and placed his package for the Queen in the sentry box. “Now you make sure that this gets to the Queen,” he said to the soldier, who had tumbled onto his bottom. “You're welcome to give it a body-search if you must, but don't you touch the money, or else!”

Then Hitman Anders returned to the priest, the receptionist, and Taxi Torsten, who managed to disappear into the traffic along Skeppsbron just seconds before the toppled soldier's backup arrived from the other direction.

* * *

At first it was said that Hitman Anders had “attacked the palace,” but only until the Queen held a press conference in which she thanked him for the fantastic (and X-rayed) gift of 494,000 kronor for children in need by way of the World Childhood Foundation.

“When are you planning to learn to count to five hundred?” the receptionist asked Hitman Anders, who chose to look surly instead of responding.

The publicity had been unparalleled, with a first wave of references to a potentially threatening situation, a second wave in which the Queen herself cleared up the matter, and a third wave in the form of a complete recap of the unique life story of Johan Andersson, a.k.a. Hitman Anders, a.k.a. Pastor Anders. “Or should I call myself Reverend?” he wondered.

“No,” said the priest.

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

“How about Dean?”