Life Deluxe (16 page)

Dad kept talking about new ways of working. About diversifying the business more. Switching their routines. Not repeating the same methods too many times. Recruiting new staff, increasing security checks, cleaning up among those who were not doing a good job.

The men were sitting in silence. Listening. Interjected something now and then.

Constantly on their faces: respect.

Then she looked at Stefanovic. She glanced again. She was certain: his eyes were gleaming.

Louise was chatting with some guy with a pink handkerchief in his breast pocket and a watch on his wrist that looked like Viktor’s.

Natalie’d called Dad to pick her up.

She’d talked to Louise, with some other girls she usually met out at clubs, had exchanged a few words with Jet Set Carl again, nonsense-talked
with someone named Nippe, grinned at a six-foot dude who was high like Burj Al Arab and pronounced the word
turquoise
in an incredibly funny way. There was nothing wrong with the night per se, but she wanted to go home now.

Dad called. Said he was parked down on the street. She could come down.

She took the elevator.

The entranceway to the building was Östermalm-style on steroids: old-fashioned moldings and Nordic frescos decorated the ceiling. A real Oriental rug on the floor as a welcome mat. Through the glass-paned doors she could see a dark blue BMW parked out on the street. It was Dad’s car.

She walked out.

The BMW was parked twenty or so yards farther down the street.

Someone strolled past the car. Disappeared around the corner onto Storgatan.

She couldn’t see who was sitting in the car.

One of the windows was rolled down a few inches.

She heard a voice. “It’s me.”

A hand waved. Dad was calling to her.

Natalie walked toward the car. Saw Dad in the driver’s seat.

He started the engine.

Ten yards left.

Then: a sound. Something exploding.

Natalie’s body was thrown back, up into the air.

She didn’t understand anything.

She heard a monotone sound.

A ringing in her ears that wouldn’t stop.

The BMW.

She tried to get up. She was on all fours.

Smoke was billowing out from the car.

Outside, rain. A low, spattering sound. As if there was a tap running somewhere in the house.

J-boy was peering outside. Massive trees. Bushes. Long leaves of grass. A little cottage that Jimmy called a tool shed. Three parked cars.

The
drip-drop
sound kept steadily on.

Spring was slow going this year.

He looked up. Beams in the ceiling. Looked weird: why build a house without finished ceilings? Had to be a Sven thing. But at least they were dry. So that’s not where the dripping sound was coming from.

He looked farther. Wallpaper with a faggy pattern: blue and pink flowers. Wood-colored bookcases, thin curtains, a fat moose horn over one of the doors. A bouquet of dried flowers above the other door. On the floor: a rug, a basket with firewood, electrical heaters that made ticking sounds.

The place was way out in the boondocks: they’d driven there on a winding road. All around: farmhouses, barns, and worn-down tractors parked in sheds that looked like they were about to cave in. Outside Strängnäs, or “inland,” as Jimmy put it.

The house: a so-called vacation home. One of those little red houses with a chimney that every single Sven seemed to own.

But why would you want one, anyway? Poor insulation, no dishwasher, no finished ceilings. Shit, they didn’t even have a DVD player or an Internet hookup out here. Jorge didn’t get what the deal was with this house.

Flashing thoughts. Images. He thought about the car chase in Sollentuna.

The tires’d screeched. The seat belt’d dug into his shoulder. The cell phone that’d been nestled behind the gearshift’d flown around the car like in a pinball machine.

He’d turned into one of the streets in the residential area. Drove like a maniac as soon as they were out of the cop’s sight. Roared at Mahmud to turn around.

“Do you see them? Do you see them?”

Mahmud didn’t see them. The cops didn’t seem to have turned onto the same street. Jorge slammed the brakes. Tore up the duffel bag with the gat. Threw open the door. Jumped out of the car. Looked over his shoulder. Black licorice marks all over the pavement behind the car. Fuck. But no cop car, not that he could see anyway.

To Mahmud, “Take my seat. Drive outa here. I’ll catch you later.”

Jorge sprinted—like a rerun of his break from the Österåker Pen. Over a hedge. Onto someone’s lawn. Over a sandbox. He panted. Breathed. Rushed.

Away, away from the street. Away with the piece.

Into the residential area.

Into the protected world of the one-family homes.

He sprinted faster than Usain Bolt over the gardens, away toward downtown Sollentuna.

He looked around. Ran down to the train station. Jumped onto a train.

He talked to Mahmud later. After a minute or so, a cruiser’d appeared from a different direction and stopped the Arab. The cops hadn’t found much. A cell phone charger, a hoodie that belonged to Babak, and a pack of cigarettes. But no weapons. They said they’d seen Jorge in the car, but who the fuck cared. They couldn’t prove that they’d driven like lunatics in the residential area. Clean.

Still: an embarrassing story.

Jorge told Mahmud not to say anything to Babak.

Back in the cottage. Jorge turned around. Behind him: two tripods. A whiteboard. A projection screen.

That
drip-drip
sound again. There must be a leak somewhere.

In front of him: seven soldiers.

Mahmud was sitting closest to him, on a wooden chair. Dressed in a tracksuit, as usual. The Adidas stripes were like gang colors for him. Bags under his eyes—he and Jorge’d been up half the night.

On the couch: Sergio, Robert, and Javier. They looked interested. Talked among themselves. Big gooey pile of cozy.

Jimmy was sitting in the other armchair. Hunched down low, naturally calm.

Tom and Viktor were sitting on the two plastic sun chairs from the garden. The Viktor dude looked jumpy. Tom was in a good mood—pulled joke after joke: so old he must’ve heard them on a radio. “What do you see when you a look a blonde in the eye—the inside of the back of her head.”

Still, the jokes lightened the mood.

Jorge took note: the group was gathered.

And now: the first general assembly was coming to order—so boner-inducing, it made his cock hurt.

They’d borrowed the cottage from Jimmy’s mom. Apparently the dude’d sat off his entire summer vacations here as a kid. Jorge thought: What the fuck’d he done all summer? There was nothing here. And the only weed around was what the cows chewed.

Still, Jimmy said he’d been livin’
la vida
, said he had it all out here. “It’s only a couple hundred yards to the beach, you know.”

Jorge recalled his own summers as a kid. Mom’d packed a blanket and a plastic bottle with Kool-Aid. Picnic in the park behind the Sollentuna Mall. Mom, Paola. And the asshole he wanted to wipe from his memory: Rodriguez.

“Tierra virgen,”
Mom said. As if a couple-hundred-square-foot park were a nature reserve.

In his head, Jorge ran through what’d been taken care of already. One of the Finn’s main principles: no written lists—could become lethal evidence for the cops after the fact. But J-boy had a good memory. This stuff filled his head during the days.

Last week: Tom Lehtimäki’d gotten eight shiny new phones from two different stores, through some boozehound. Chosen stores that didn’t have camera surveillance. Tom slipped the drunk five hundred kronor and a handle of whiskey for his trouble.

What’s more: Tom’d gotten walkie-talkies. Maybe they’d need gear that couldn’t be tracked through the telephone networks. Tom pulled the same trick: asked some drunk to shell out so that no one saw him touch the equipment. Tossed the receipts into a storm drain.

The other guys: been rocking out on a swiping spree. Buckets, crowbars, axes, gas cans, screwdrivers, trestles, spray adhesive, and other shit they were gonna need.

Jorge bought thirty rolls of aluminum foil at the grocery store in the
Sollentuna Mall. The cashier asked if he was gonna wallpaper with foil. She didn’t know how right she was.

Jorge stood up like a fucking homeroom teacher. Was planning on waiting until everyone shut up. Wasn’t gonna clear his throat. None of that “Hey, I was gonna start now” bullshit. Just wait. Him: the leader.

A few seconds: they got the hint. Settled down. Leaned back. Fixed their eyes on him.

Jorge said, “
Hermanos
. Today is our day. This is the first time we’re all getting together. So I thought I would explain this thing to everyone. Not every detail and whatever, but most of it. I want you to understand the basic way we’re thinking about this hit. If something happens, if one of you disappears or whatever, the rest of you need to be able to step in and do his job.
Entiendes?
”

Jorge’d prepared his spiel. Had to show the boys he was a pro.

“We might need to meet up like this more times. We’re gonna need to work together on shit. We can handle it, no problem.”

He heard the Finn’s words coming out of his own mouth.

“I’m gonna start by writing down a few rules on this whiteboard. Things we all gotta think about. Rules we gotta follow. Believe me, we do something wrong, and it’s gonna turn into the world’s biggest fucking fuck-up, all of it.”

Jorge started writing on the board while he explained.

“Everyone’s gotta stop doing their own usual shit. And I know you know what I mean.”

He didn’t need to say more. Everyone knew: Javier dealt weed and chased after whores four nights a week. Robert ran some racketeering now and then. That Viktor dude reregistered boosted German luxury buckets and sold them through his company.

“All business that isn’t
blanco
stops now. If I catch any of you doing some side shit, you’re gonna have to answer to me.”

He continued to write down rules.

No heavy drinking.

No tripping.

“That’s obvious. When you’re drunk or high, you start talking. Leak worse than the American army. That’s always how it is.”

Always park legally.

“If you park somewhere wrong—pay the ticket, and after you pay
it, don’t forget to toss it somewhere other than where you live. Or else the cops can find that ticket and figure out where you’ve been, after. Always let someone else drive ahead of you if you’re packing heat in the car.”

He thought about the chase in Sollentuna again. If they’d had a lead car, like Jorge was pushing for now, that probably never would’ve happened.

He continued listing rules:

No written reminders.

No texts.

Don’t touch anything important without gloves.

Most important of all: no talking with anyone about this. Not even girlfriends/homies/bros.

No one.

“You got that?”

Jorge glared at them. One after the other. These weren’t guys who took shit. These were guys who, normally, would’ve skull-crushed anyone who ordered them around. Still: this was it. The big time. If they weren’t planning on following the rules, they could get the fuck outa here.

After a while: Jorge opened his bag. Picked up a black case, as big as a DVD player. Unzipped the zipper. A projector. He tinkered with the video camera. Connected the cords. Played with the buttons. Technology wasn’t really his thing—but he’d double-checked the equipment at home first.

An image appeared on the projector screen. A shaky road through a car window.

“What you see here is the road leading to Tomteboda.”

The film rolled. Jorge: gave running commentary. He knew this area now. The fence around the building and the loading docks like little toys far in the background. Zoomed. Closer to the fence around the buildings, the surveillance cameras, the train tracks, the access roads, the control booths.

Zoomed: the massive sliding gate. Motorized.

“Me and my contact are working on how we’re gonna get in. Either we cut the fence somewhere, but that might be too slow going. Or we blow our way in. Or we force the gate somehow. We’ll figure it out.”

They saw trucks pulling in and out. Employees walking through gates where they flashed key cards in order to be admitted.

Zoomed: the guards in the control booths. Suspicious. Vigilant.

“They’re gonna unload the valuables at the loading dock here. But there’s a vault too. If we get into that, it’ll be like double jeopardy. The biggest question right now is how we’re gonna do that.”

Later: a few minutes into the film. Roundabouts, roads, exits. Signs that hung over the rode:
STOCKHOLM DOWNTOWN, SOLNA, SUNDBYBERG
. Finally: images of the police stations. Solna. Kronoberg. Södermalm. Above all: long shots of the exits to the garages. Jorge paused the film. Let the image freeze at the final one: the exit to the Västberga police station.

He tried not to sound cocky, “You see, this heist is special. They don’t think anyone can make a hit against the central depot for cash in transit because it’s so close to downtown. And that’s where we come in. We’re gonna floor the five-oh like bowling pins.”