Life Deluxe (50 page)

He saw Javier pour the white powder onto a DVD.

Hägerström didn’t want to be in the same room as him. He led
the girl into Javier’s bedroom. She sat down on the bed. He remained standing by the side of the bed.

Before he had a chance to ask her if she wanted to leave with him, the door opened. Javier and his girl tumbled in. Hägerström saw coke rings around his nose.

They threw themselves onto the bed. Javier grabbed hold of Hägerström’s arm in the fall. Tore him down with him.

The girls were giggling. Javier rolled around and wrestled Hägerström onto his back before he had a chance to sit up again.

“Come on, officer, don’t be shy.”

Hägerström’s mind was searching for options. Evasions. He could just get up and leave without explaining why. Tomorrow he could say he hadn’t been feeling well or something. He could try to get his girl back out into the living room again, away from Javier’s eyes. Or else he could play along for a while and then try to escape when Javier was doing his thing.

He felt fuzzy. Drunk. His thoughts wouldn’t crystallize. The room was spinning.

One of the girls started to unbutton his shirt. Javier was lying on his back in the wide bed; the other girl was in the process of pulling his pants off. Hägerström sat up. Set his feet down onto the floor. The girl pulled his shirt up. He was sitting with his back to Javier. Heard him moaning. The girl started to caress his chest.

He wanted to get one more look at Javier before he stood up and went back down to his hotel room. He twisted his torso, turned around. Javier was still lying on his back. The girl was sitting on top of him, on her knees, bent down. She had the tip of his cock in her mouth. Her long black hair framed the image, almost like a photograph. Hägerström sat, frozen. Just staring.

The girl next to him started unbuttoning his pants.

Javier raised his head. “What’s up with you, man? You need help or what?”

Before Hägerström could react—or rather, probably before he
wanted
to react—Javier threw himself over to him and grabbed hold of his boxers. He put his hand inside. Pulled out Hägerström’s cock.

He grew hard immediately

Javier laughed. The Thai girl standing over him looked up. The girl next to Hägerström bent down quickly, licked his cock. Hägerström shuddered. Javier was still holding his member.

The girl licked him again.

The whole time, Javier maintained a firm grip on his cock.

The girl raised her head.

Javier was lying on his stomach. Pushed himself up with his free hand.

Hägerström could usually recognize men who liked other men—he thought he could tell by their eyes. But he’d completely missed Javier. Now he knew what that gleam in his eye had been.

Javier opened his mouth.

Took Hägerström’s cock in his mouth.

The next morning he woke up in Javier’s bed. The Thai girls were gone. The sheets were crumpled. The AC was humming.

Hägerström turned over. He heard the door open, or close. He saw condoms and lube on the nightstand. He got up. He was naked. There was a faint burning in his ass.

Javier walked into the bedroom. A glass of juice in one hand. He laughed and said, “Yo man, it got pretty lively in here last night.”

Hägerström felt unprepared. He had just had an incredible night with a megagangster. A man who, according to Torsfjäll’s searches, had been convicted of countless violent crimes and drug offenses, was probably involved in the CIT heist of the year, and—above all—was someone he had been hired to infiltrate. This was a person he was supposed to trick at all times. Not fuck.

What should he say? Javier didn’t seem to think there was anything strange about what had happened. He hadn’t been open about his orientation with Jorge. A double agent, just like him. On the other hand: Jorge was in Sweden now. And he didn’t know that Hägerström was playing a double-double game.

His boxers were at the foot of the bed. He put them on. At first, he wasn’t going to say anything. Just leave and pretend like nothing happened.

But Javier beat him to it. “I’ve been to visit Mahmud at the hospital. They’re gonna release him in a few days.”

“Oh okay, good.” Hägerström hadn’t met Mahmud yet. He bent down for his pants.

Javier grinned. “So I think you should take those boxers off, have some juice, and we’ll get back in bed.”

Hägerström couldn’t help but smile in return.

“That was nice of you, to get the juice and all,” he said.

Javier threw himself onto the bed. “I was born nice. Let’s have ourselves a quickie now, huh?”

Hägerström lay down next to him.

Javier kissed his chest.

Hägerström climbed out of his own bed. His bags were packed. He opened the door.

So much had happened in such short time. He had spent the days with Javier. They had smoked cigarettes, ordered takeout from Hägerström’s favorite restaurant, and had lots of sex. They had talked about everything and nothing. Why Hägerström had been booted from the force, why Javier hated cops. Why Phuket was a dump while Bangkok was sweet. Why all the restaurants here had plastic chairs and their cashew nuts tasted like a favorite chocolate bar from home.

At night, they went out to eat. They didn’t touch each other openly, but they brushed against each other all the time. Knee against knee. Hand against hip. Shoulder against shoulder. A flash of heat shot through Hägerström every time.

And today Jorge and Javier’s friend, Mahmud, was being checked out from the hospital. That meant the end of Hägerström and Javier’s little fling.

But Javier came up with an idea: “Let’s go to Bangkok for a few days. Now that the Arab’s out and can take care of himself, I don’t have to stay in this dump anymore. You and me can have a better time somewhere else.”

“All right,” Hägerström said.

He would love to go to Bangkok. He would love to get more time with Javier. There was just one question: what the hell was he doing?

He walked down the stairs. Javier was already sitting in the taxi that was going to take them to the airport.

A few days in Bangkok. After that, nothing planned.

Five days passed. Hägerström and Javier spent every single minute together. They checked into a sweet hotel, Hägerström picked up the bill. They lay in bed and talked about Hägerström’s Jaguar and about
Javier’s dream car, Porsche Panamera. They talked about what it would be like to be a father—Hägerström didn’t say anything about Pravat, but everything he said was based on his own experience.

They analyzed life behind bars—Javier from his perspective, and Hägerström from the screw side. They made love. They joked about the best ways to conceal weapons. Javier had gotten away clean from a search of his house once because he had painted his Glock yellow. The cops thought it was a toy gun. Idiots. They laughed, they made love again.

They went out to eat at restaurants where the food tasted like home. Hägerström guided them to the gay bars he had hung out at when he was working here in the foreign service. They strolled through the megamalls, eyed the shopping hysteria. They talked about the small altars in the 7-Eleven stores and the Buddha figurines that Western men wore around their necks.

Jorge was still in Sweden. Hägerström called the seller of the place in Phuket and negotiated an extension. Javier called Mahmud—the Arab was enjoying being out of the hospital, but he was wondering when Jorge or Javier were coming back to Phuket. Javier had paid the hospital bill with the last money Jorge had left.

Hägerström and Javier bought identical Ray-Ban shades. They walked around in tank tops and flip-flops. There was more than a ten-year age difference between them. They went to the temples by the river and looked at the enormous recumbent golden Buddha. They went to the floating market. They relaxed in the hotel room.

They walked hand in hand on the street.

It was the first time in Hägerström’s life that he held another man’s hand openly. But it wasn’t just that. He was comfortable with this guy, enjoyed his company. Life was pretty wonderful. The only thing that bothered him was that he missed Pravat. But he definitely felt different with Javier than he had felt in a long time. It was like they met each other eye to eye, even though they were so different. As though it just clicked every time they spoke.

A completely impossible combination. An ex-cop, ex-screw with a super G. A Östermalm gentleman with a ghetto boy from the projects. Two macho men in a homo-relationship. An undercover agent with one of his targets.

He should have ended this on day one.

But he couldn’t, didn’t want to. And anyway, it wasn’t all that bad. They were alone in Bangkok, no one would find them out. The whole thing could be kept separate from the rest of their lives and from Hägerström’s operation. Maybe it would just peter out into a friendship anyway.

He thought about his brother. All Carl’s friends were either from elementary school, high school, or his university years. He didn’t have a single friend he had met after the age of twenty-three. And he was proud of that. “There’s something weird about people who make a bunch of friends when they’re adults,” he liked to say. “Either they didn’t have any friends when they were young, or else their friends don’t want them around anymore. Definitely suspicious, in my opinion.”

Hägerström thought about his father. He thought about his mother. All their friends were, like, from the beginning of time. All their friends lived the exact same lives they lived. Enormous flats within the same five-hundred-yard radius, enormous houses in the northern suburbs or estates in Sörmland. Nice summer homes in Torekov or the archipelago. Zero divorces. Zero acquaintances from non-European countries. Children who married each other in standard heterosexual marriages. Not a cop as far as the eye could see.

Hägerström forced himself to sober up on day six. He hadn’t been in touch with Torsfjäll in over two weeks. The inspector had sent him texts, he had deleted them without responding.

But now he wrote,
In Bangkok with Javier. Mahmud out of the hospital. Jorge still gone
.

A response on his cell twenty seconds later. He was sitting on the toilet. His phone was on silent. Security was still everything.

Why haven’t you been in touch. Call me
.

He was down on the street fifteen minutes later. Told Javier that he had to call his mother, in private.

“Where’ve you been?” Torsfjäll asked.

Hägerström didn’t know what to say. “When Mahmud was checked out of the hospital, Javier didn’t need to stay in Phuket anymore and wanted to go to Bangkok. So I went with him.”

“I understand. Stuff’s been happening over here, at home. They’ve brought in a guy named Babak Behrang from Thailand. He’s been
arrested on suspicion of the CIT robbery in Tomteboda. And he’s part of the same circle as Jorge, Mahmud, and the others down there. So it’s just as I said: they’re all involved in this robbery.”

“That’s not at all impossible, but they’re very tight-lipped. They’re pros, maybe. But they seem to be low on cash. And I haven’t heard anyone mention any Babak.”

“Yes, apparently the robbery didn’t yield all that much. And so many of them were splitting that pie—there are more men down where you are who’re connected to this. And the hypothesis the investigative team is working with is that there’s a taskmaster somewhere in the background too. Their information points to a person who calls himself the Finn. They don’t know who he is, but the feds suspect that he’s behind several of the big CIT robberies over the past few years. Has anyone mentioned him?”

“Not a peep. They don’t talk about that kind of thing with me.”

“It might come. They’ve already interrogated that Babak guy three times here in Sweden.”

“And what does he say?”

“Not much. But the investigators think that they’re going to be able to crack him. And Jorge—what’ve you got on him?”

“Like I wrote in my text—he’s still gone. He’s in Sweden, as far as I know. No one’s heard from him there?”

“No, and he’s good at keeping his head down, that little fucker. He was on the run from prison for over a year, a few years back.”

“So what do I do now?”

Torsfjäll fell silent for a few seconds and thought it over. “I’ll get back to you with instructions. Maybe you’ll have to stay in Thailand for a while longer, or maybe I’ll want you to come home. Maybe I’ll want you to try to get all the boys down there to go home so that we can pick them up here.”

They hung up. Hägerström remained standing on the street for a few minutes. Cabs were dropping off tourists and Thai businessmen. Farther off, he saw large staircases winding up toward the elevated railway. A family with kids came walking toward him. He watched them.

The mom was pushing the double stroller. She flashed Hägerström a quick smile.

He went back up to Javier.

A few days later, as Hägerström came out of the shower, Javier was sitting on the bed. His previously suntanned chest had started to fade somewhat.

He was looking down at something.

Hägerström was completely naked.

Javier held up Hägerström’s cell phone.