Life Deluxe (59 page)

The setup and the structure varied depending on the client and the sum.

A significant portion was located in European countries or in the Caribbean. But according to JW, things were changing now. Actually, the best countries were Panama and certain emirate states.

Best of all: JW’d enrolled the perfect banker. He didn’t want to mention him by name, but the guy’d apparently been CEO and head of a branch office in Danske Bank. An upstanding gentleman. A man from the real business world. “My man at the front,” as JW called him.

The guy lived down in Liechtenstein but mostly traveled around the world. Ran the actual management company, Northern White Asset Management, and the shell bank, which took care of everything. The guy had connections with the offshore institutions and the law firms that helped get fake invoices, trust setups, certificates, and other documentation needed to create the impression that legitimate transactions were taking place.

He made sure the invoices were sent, that the banks issued credit cards. To put it simply: the guy held all the strings. And he created trust, both with the people down there and with the clients here at home.

Last but not least: integration. The reintegration of the money back into the legal economy. The final step. The most important step. Everyone wanted to be able to use their assets freely, without arousing suspicions.

JW’d been the brain behind the main setup. Many clients demanded special solutions. Sometimes a foreign company lent money to a client.
The loan explained why the client suddenly could have so much money, from nowhere. Sometimes a foreign company bought property from a client at a crazy inflated price. The gains were totally legal, after all, even if it was taxable. Sometimes a trust was set up that made real investments on the stock exchange: the gains were white as snow even though the money that’d originally been invested was bloody. Sometimes a company in Panama simply paid for a client’s health insurance, home, or new seventy-foot motorboat. How would the authorities in Sweden ever find out that the client had a Sunseeker yacht docked in a marina in Cannes?

But JW’s favorite setup was entirely different. It was magically elegant. At the same time, awfully simple.

The money arrived at the client’s company in some appropriate country. The company signed a contract through JW’s Northern White Asset Management and opened a bank account in a bigger, better-known bank. That bank issued credit cards to Northern White Asset Management on behalf of the client’s company. The credit cards were sent to the client in Sweden.

In other words: suddenly the client had access to a card connected to all the money he’d collected through bank robberies, blackmail, drugs, sex trafficking, or regular old tax evasion. And there was never an actual person’s name on the card. No one could connect the client to all the money being spent. Everything went through the Northern White company instead.

It was so simple. It was so elegant.

JW grinned. “Personally, I have a MasterCard Gold. Issued by a bank in the Bahamas, Arner Bank and Trust. Big Brother will never know that I consume like an oligarch.”

Natalie listened.

“We have more than two hundred clients in Sweden,” JW said. “Everything from your father’s people to the financial elite in Djursholm. Everyone wants to get away with it. And everyone does get away with it thanks to help from me, Bladman, and my deluxe guy down there.”

Honestly, Natalie was impressed. By the size of the operation, the number of clients, and the complexity of it all. Most of all, she was impressed that he’d managed to run it all from prison.

“How’d you manage to do it from the inside?”

He laughed. “Let me put it this way: I had help.”

He got up and got dressed.

Natalie sat on the edge of the bed. Put her panties on and fastened her bra.

“So you want the war to end,” she said. “You want me to work with you. But you had another proposition. Something more you want from me. What?”

“Like I said: to begin with, I want you to hire only me in the future.”

Natalie pulled her pants on. “That’s not a problem.”

“Second of all, I want your organization’s full protection when shit hits the AC, so to speak.”

She looked questioningly at him. Did he have in mind Melissa Cherkasova? The politician Bengt Svelander? The Russian’s building project through Östersjön, the Nordic Pipe?

“You’ve already said that,” Natalie said. “What more do you want?”

JW looked deeply into her eyes. “I want you to kill Stefanovic.”

For a second or two, Natalie didn’t know what to say. It was so direct, so unexpected, and so brutal to be coming from JW. But she recovered quickly—this was her reality.

“I’d want nothing more myself. But let me tell you, it’s not so easy, ending that fucker.”

“I’ve understood as much. But I can help you. He trusts me. I can give you what you need. In exchange, I will give you what you want.”

JW rose, opened the door, and walked out.

Adam was still sitting on the couch, looked as if he hadn’t moved a muscle.

Natalie gazed out through the window. Down onto the street.

She saw JW exit the hotel lobby. A white Audi pulled up next to him. She saw a man in the driver’s seat.

He had light brown hair. Something about him felt strange—Natalie couldn’t put her finger on what. He reminded her of Thomas.

She stared at the Audi.

She saw a sticker on the car’s back window:
HERTZ
.

The car rolled off. The sticker was still visible through the back window.

It was a rental car. Probably because JW wanted to own as little as possible that could show up in some record.

Then she thought again.
A rental car
.

Anyone could rent a car. Of course.

What an idiot she’d been.

She grabbed her phone.

Jorge’s head was filled with images.

How he’d run up the stairs. Heard screams from down below. Cops, the cabbie. Maybe neighbors.

Doors with names over the mail slot. Four on every landing.

No real plan, this wasn’t his home turf, but he wasn’t gonna fucking give up when he’d gotten this far. Shawshank—that’s exactly who he was gonna be tonight.

The five-oh oughta be forced to stop for a few minutes: the cabbie down there with the toy gun pointing straight at his mug was like a stop block.

J-boy panted. His heart was beating faster than he was running.

How many stories did this building have, anyway?

The answer came immediately. He was standing in front of a door that seemed to be made out of plywood. It was locked. The end of the stairwell. Didn’t look like there were any apartments up here. But there were boxes on the floor, some kind of generator, and a bunch of cables. He picked up the generator. It probably weighed over a hundred pounds. It felt like his back was breaking.

He staggered. Almost fell. Then straightened up. Held the generator bulk in front of him in a cramped grip. Thundered straight into the closed door.

The sound: like the building was crashing down around him. Lots of dust. A rattling noise. He’d slam-dunked the generator straight through the door. Two-zero to Jorge.

He looked around. The sheet of plywood behind him was hanging on one hinge. He understood why there were boxes and a generator outside the door—someone was in the process of turning this attic into a massive apartment.

High ceilings. Beams up there. Three large holes in three different spots in the ceiling covered with hard plastic. Irregular pillars everywhere.
Paintbrushes, cables, and worker’s gloves in large crates standing on the filthy gray protective paper that was covering the floor. Building machines, ladders, and wooden boards were leaning up against the white-painted walls.

Jorge didn’t have time to loiter and look around—as he grabbed a ladder, he just had time to think: the Svens loved their renovated attic apartments the way his homies loved their tricked-out Benzes. Everyone wanted something to pimp. Everyone wanted something to brag about. The elevator didn’t go all the way up, and there were five flights of stairs to walk, maybe with a stroller—who gave? You couldn’t stand upright in half the square footage because the ceilings were so slanted—who gave?
Who gave
that the windows were set so deep, they had to live in semidarkness year round? The Svens: just as horny for status as everyone else—they were just into weirder shit.

He propped up the ladder. Climbed toward one of the holes in the ceiling. Struck the hard plastic with a screwdriver he’d found in one of the crates. They were obviously building skylights here.

He slipped the screwdriver in under the edge of the plastic. The ladder swayed. He bent the plastic back. Pulled on it. Tore off small nails and tape.

He heard voices yelling down in the stairwell. They were on their way up.

He got a good grip with his fingers. The hard plastic cut into his skin. He didn’t give a shit. He used both hands and put his whole weight into it. It was bulging inward now. He climbed one more step up the ladder.

Felt the cold night air hit his face. He slipped his backpack off.

The ladder swayed.

He almost lost his grip.

He managed to press aside enough of the plastic to haul himself up. Pushed the backpack out.

Both elbows on the roof now. He was standing on tiptoes on the ladder. He pulled his torso up. He tore himself on some nails that were still stuck in the material.

The hard plastic scraped his back. He kicked the ladder to the side.

Pulled the rest of his body up and out. It’d started to rain again.

The roof was probably slippery as hell.

He hunched down. Slipped forward a few feet. Tried to get a look down at the street. He didn’t need to: the cop cars were projecting a light show that colored the building facades blue all the way up here.

The
culos
down there could mobilize as much as they wanted—Shawshank was on the go.

He reached the edge of the roof. The next building over: not as tall. The roof: over ten feet down.

They didn’t seem to have followed him up onto the roof.

He jumped. Flew.

As though he were floating through the air. Ice-cold drops of rain pecked holes in his face. He was seeing things in slow motion. He saw himself fall. He saw his foot twist in the grass beyond the wall. Saw himself running from the Österåker Pen, toward freedom. Pain in his ankle, shooting up through his leg. His steps, all fucked up.

It couldn’t happen again. He landed.

His arms and feet broke the fall. Like a cat.

Like Spider-Man.

Sprint. Faster.

His back was completely soaked. The backpack was bouncing up and down. Was it rain or was it sweat? In the middle of the mad rush: a thought about his sweat. His smell now: sharp, strong, stressed.

Onward, across the next rooftop.

He pushed himself.

Never slow down, J-boy—never slow down. Life is yours to take
.

Farther up, he saw the end of the street block. To jump over to the next building: impossible. At least fifty feet. He had to get down somehow.

He looked around. Slid down to the edge of the roof. Feet first. Terrified of losing his grip.

He placed one foot on the drainpipe. Put his weight on it. It seemed stable.

He stepped down onto it with his other foot. Folded his body down. Tried to hold on to a roof tile with one hand.

Bent his head down. Looked over the edge of the roof. Shit—at least sixty-five feet down. He got mad vertigo.

Then he looked again. Directly below him: a balcony.

There was a God.

Jorge opened his eyes. The images disappeared. One day and five hours since he’d fled from the cop ambush.

He’d busted the balcony window carefully. Opened it. Slipped
soundlessly through the apartment. Maybe someone was sleeping in there. The front door was easy to open from the inside. He crept down the stairs. There were two entrances downstairs—one led to the courtyard exit. He chose that one. Leaped over a couple fences to other inner courtyards. Emerged on the other side of the block.

The street outside was dead quiet.

He spent the night and the next day outside. Roaming back and forth in a mall. Pocketed candy bars at ICA Supermarket and bought a prepaid phone card. Wondered who he dared call.

Pulled a classic move: bought a personal identification number from a junkie by Fridhemsplan for one grand. The night shelters invoiced the junkie’s welfare officer. The dude lost his welfare checks—but would rather have easy money for horse.

Jorge checked into Karisma Care by Fridhemsplan for the night, under his new name.

And that was where he was now. An uncomfortable mattress. Lots of uneasy people all around him. Didn’t matter—he’d made it.

He got up. Walked out to the common room. Wooden chairs and a dank old couch. A TV in one corner. A pay phone in another. Dudes who looked like they were sixty years old but were probably not a day over thirty. A small reception area. A large message board across from the welcome desk, peppered with ads for
Situation Stockholm
: opportunities to sell the magazine that profited a cause for the homeless. Courses at the community college: discount for homeless people. Information packets about welfare programs. Bikram yoga classes in Mälarhöjden.