Life Deluxe (63 page)

Now: already too long in Swedeville. J-boy’d done what he’d come here to do. The cash’d been dug up. Six hundred G’s for this G.

Now: time to go back. Figure out the café down there. Settle down. Let the years pass by. Chill with Mahmud.

His loss: Javier’d been collared—nothing Jorge could do about that. The
blatte
’d been an idiot for coming home. Still, he felt bad for Javier’s sake.

He’d given the dough to JW. His bro’d promised to Mr. Clean that shit. Instead of exchanging it or laundering it, he was gonna get it down to some account in Liechtenstein, then into an Asian bank. Shit, his buddy JW was cool—was only charging forty big ones for his trouble. Jorge was gonna get a credit card tied to the cash.
Guapo
.

After his escape over the rooftops in Vasastan—Jorge’s jumpiness’d reached new levels. He saw dark Saab 9-5s—UC cop-car giveaways—every minute. Texted the National Road Administration ten times a day.

He dreamed twisted nightmares every night. Every other time he saw Javier in a cell in jail—they were hosing him down with fire hoses. Screaming, “Where is Jorge? Talk!” Every other time he saw Babak calling the Finn from a cell phone he’d smuggled in behind the bars: “Jorge played you.”

Jorge’d stayed at a new homeless shelter every night. He’d bought a winter hat and pulled it down low over his ears. He bought a Palestine scarf and pulled it up high over his chin. Go ahead, let ’em think he was Taimour Abdulwahab with a political fixation—as long as no one recognized him.

All he’d been waiting for was today: the flight to Bangkok was taking off at four o’clock.

Jorge: Shawshank.

Still a king?

Still J. Bernadotte Bhumibol?

Hardly—all he wanted now was to get away. Screw everything. Babak could go ahead and rat him out—the prosecutor wouldn’t bother chasing him all the way to Phuket. Little Jorge and Paola would have to survive on their own for a few years. Javier would have to lie as well as he could to duck a charge.

Jorge was outa here.

He was sitting in the departure hall in terminal five. Nasty markup on croissants and orange juice. The plane was departing in one hour. Thailand
—estoy esperando!
Checked in and ready. Just carry-on, a passport with a proven success rate, a car magazine to read on the plane: nice. He hadn’t passed through security yet. The less time inside the terminal the better—he felt trapped in there.

He’d actually called his mom. Said
adíos
. Explained that he loved her, Paola, and Jorgito more than anything. She just cried. After they hung up, Jorge saw two words on the insides of his eyelids:
Mama trató
—Mom, you tried.

Crumbs from the croissant were getting everywhere. He was sitting so that he could see a screen with the flight info. Fifty-five minutes to go.

He thought of what Mahmud used to say: “Ride gangster, die gangster.”

And now: how would Jorge die? In a dank apartment in Phuket? As a café king in a fat bungalow on the beach? In a Swedish prison? He didn’t know, and right now he just didn’t give a shit. As long as he made it onto this plane.

Javier thoughts again. He was leaving his friend here. But the ground rules had been clear: everyone had to deal with their own shit on their own. He couldn’t be his boy’s mama, couldn’t wipe the Latino’s ass for him.

Then he remembered his most recent conversation with Mahmud.

“I’m coming back, the day after tomorrow.”

“Okay, good. And the dough?”

“Done. JW’s taking care of it.”

“Great.”

“Anything you want me to bring over from here? Some food, dick?”

“I’ve got a dick already, thanks. But can you buy some of that fish candy?”

Jorge smiled inside.

Now: fifty minutes till the plane took off. He missed Mahmud.

A vibration in his pocket. Someone was calling his phone. It was Paola’s number.

Her voice sounded stressed. She was almost whispering.

“Jorge.”

“Yes, what’s wrong?”

“They’re here.”

“Who?”

“They’re pounding on the door. They say they’re gonna break it down if you don’t come here and pay.”

“Who says that?”

Jorge heard his own voice: weak. Felt his head: growing hot.

Paola said, “They’re from someone called the Finn. They say you ripped them off. I told them you’re not in Sweden, but they don’t believe me.”

In Jorge’s head: bad images. Paola’s frightened eyes. Jorgito with bruises on his face. What the fuck was he gonna do?

He heard screaming in the background. He heard Paola yell, “Beat it! Jorge isn’t here!”

He heard pounding sounds.

“Jorge, what should I do?”

“Is Jorgito there too?”

“Yes, I locked him in his room. What should I say?”

Jorge looked at the screen farther off. Forty minutes until takeoff. Forty minutes until peace and quiet.

He was holding his passport and boarding pass in one hand. Cell phone in the other. The screams in the background. The pounding. He couldn’t even hear what Paola was trying to say.

Mahmud’s saying in his head:
Ride gangster, die gangster
—but what kind of a G leaves his sister in the lurch?

Jorge yelled into the phone, “Don’t open the door. I’m coming.”

The taxi was driving eighty-five miles an hour. Jorge’d flashed an extra five-hundred-kronor bill. The cabbie promised to drive as fast as he dared.

It would take at least thirty-five minutes to get to Hägersten. Jorge tried to visualize Paola’s door. How thick could it be? What could it be made of? Wouldn’t the neighbors react if someone tried to break it down? Should he call the police?

The final thought felt unreal: he’d never called the police in his entire life.

He called Paola again. She picked up: the noise in the background was even worse now. But her crying was the worst.

He screamed, “Paola, you have to call the police! You HAVE TO! I’m hanging up now, and then you call me back when you’ve talked to the cops.”

They hung up.

Jorge waited.

Not too much traffic on the highway. He stared down at his phone’s display.

Was there anyone he could call who could get there faster? Fuck, everyone he knew who might have had his back was abroad, in jail, or had become ruler-straight. Except for that Hägerström guy and JW—but no, they weren’t the right caliber for this.

His screen remained dark. Why didn’t she call him back?

Jorge entered the most recently dialed number.

Signals went through.

It went to her voicemail.

He called again. One, two, three signals.

She picked up this time. No noise in the background. Paola was crying. “They’re inside now, do you understand? I’ve locked myself in with Jorgito in his room.”

“I’m on my way. Did you call the police?”

The call was cut off.

Jorge tried to call again.

Only:
“You’ve reached Paola. You know what to do after the beep.”

He was holding the phone tightly in his hand.

Then he did something he never thought he’d do.

He called the five-oh.

Twenty minutes to get to Paola’s door.

The taxi driver tore through more than three red lights. The worst minutes of his life.

He saw the cop car down on the street.

He ran up the stairs.

The crowbar marks on the door were clearly visible. The door was ajar.

He heard men’s voices from inside the apartment.

He peered in. Glimpsed two cops in there.

He hoped they’d made it on time. But he couldn’t go in if there were cops in there. He tried to listen. Paola’s voice? Jorgito’s voice?

He didn’t hear anything.

Jorge walked down the stairs.

He called Paola.

Signals went through.

A man picked up. “Who is it?”

Jorge hoped it was one of the cops.

“It’s Paola’s brother.”

The voice said, “We’ve got her and the kid.”

He clocked right away—he’d been too late.

He said, “You fucking cunts. Release her and the child. They haven’t done anything.”

The voice said, “The Finn wants his money. The Finn knows you ripped him off.”

The voice had a slight accent. Jorge couldn’t place it.

“What the fuck is he talking about? I haven’t ripped him off.”

“We know. Canaries’ve been singing from jail. You stashed away three bags. The Finn wants his money.”

Joder. Maricón
.

Motherfuckingcocksucker.

No words were enough—the Babak
-puta
must’ve snitched. Jorge wondered how the info’d leaked out. The Iranian was locked up, top security, all restrictions applied.

“Release my sis and the child.”

“We’ll make an exchange. You bring the cash you stole, eight hundred thousand. We bring what you want.”

“When?”

“As soon as you like.”

“Where?”

“We’ll call you about that. You got the dough?”

Jorge envisioned the two hundred he’d given to Babak and the bag with six hundred that he’d handed over to JW to launder in offshore accounts.

He responded, “Yes.”

Now they ought to have a watertight case.

Two days after the moose hunt at Avesjö, JW called Hägerström.

“Thanks for a good time. It was great, really great.”

Hägerström waited for something more. They discussed the hunt and the gentlemen’s dinner that followed for about five minutes. Then. There it was. JW’s order: “Come to Bladman’s accounting firm—you know where it is. You’ve dropped me off there tons of times. Bring a duffel bag, a backpack, or some other small bag.”

Hägerström drove there. Torsfjäll had ordered him, for the first time, to wear a wire.

JW was waiting for him down on the street.

“This isn’t where we’re going.”

He followed JW. They walked around the block and stopped in front of the entrance to a regular residential building. JW punched a code into the keypad. They walked up the stairs. An ordinary door, it said
ANDERSSON
on the mail slot. JW unlocked the door, and they stepped inside.

It was a small apartment. Two rooms. The walls were covered with bookshelves filled with binders. Hägerström tried not to stare. He felt elated.

Superbingo—this had to be the secret cache. The double set of books that Torsfjäll had been so convinced that they had.

Finally. Operation Tide would soon come to an end.

One of the rooms held a desk. They sat down on either side of it.

JW set a backpack on the table. Hägerström recognized it; it was the one he had seen Jorge lugging around.

JW opened the backpack. Inside was a white plastic bag containing something that looked like a carton of milk.

He set the bag down on the table.

“Here, take this and put it in your bag.”

Hägerström stared.

JW grinned. “Take it easy. I actually don’t know exactly what it is. But I know it’s not drugs or chemical weapons or anything.”

He placed an envelope on the table.

“This is your ticket. The flight leaves tomorrow at nine o’clock, going to Zurich. From there you’ll take an express train to Liechtenstein. That’s where you’ll leave the bag. Then you go back to Zurich and take a plane home, at five o’clock CET.”