Life Deluxe (9 page)

In the days that followed, Jorge spoke with Sergio, Robert Progat, and Javier—in that order.

They were all of the same opinion: Your Royal Highness Jorge Bernadotte, you’re Jesus, man. Obviously everyone wanted in.

OBVIOUSLY.

The team was taking shape. The group was growing. The pieces were falling into place.

Heat, Reservoir Dogs, Ocean’s Eleven
—this time it was for real.

At the same time: Stockholm’d just been hit with the scoop of the decade.

The news of the century. The highlight of the fucking millennium—someone’d tried to pop Radovan. The Yugo boss, to Jorge: his hate was so deep, it dug a ditch inside him. He’d attacked Mr. R’s interests before: the hit to Smådalarö, the shots in the brothel in Hallonbergen. And in his dreams: over and over again. One sweet day J-boy would crush the Yugo king for good. In other words: the attempt on Radovan’s life was big. Not just for Jorge. For the entire underworld. Everyone was gossiping, ruminating, speculating. Offering their opinions. A transfer of power was in the works, a new king was on his way up the hill. An opening for more players to take over the territory.

But still: he couldn’t focus on that right now. The smartest CIT in history, that’s what counted now. Jorge imagined the newspaper headlines he wanted to read after the fact:
No more cash in Stockholm’s ATMs—the robbers got their hands on a record sum. The coup that outdid all previous coups. The biggest CIT heist ever
.

The latest recruits: two Svens.

That was the Finn’s original order: “You need a few real Swedes too. To get tools, vehicles, and things like that. People who have more connections in the construction business than you do.”

Jorge didn’t protest. Tom Lehtimäki suggested names. They discussed back and forth. Who you could trust. Who was 100 percent.

Jorge had individual meetings with the two guys Tom suggested.

One of the dudes was named Jimmy. Tiler who reported zero but hauled in cash through off-the-books gigs and flipped construction machinery online. The guy: overly positive, super into it, totally on board.

The other dude: more calm. Talked like he already knew all there was to know. Still, gave off a good vibe—the guy didn’t seem dumb. Ran his own business. Worked with cars and boats. Drove a BMW X6. His name was Viktor.

Tom said Viktor was desperate for cash. The guy’s business was apparently sinking, even if he claimed the opposite. And he was loaded with private debt all the way up to his plucked eyebrows. Jorge saw possibilities: a dude who oughta be prepared to take care of the dirty work.

Jorge thanked Tom for the tips—these guys would be assets.

Jorge and Mahmud met the Finn one more time.

This time: somewhere completely different. The dude: nasty smart—if they’d been snitches, they wouldn’t have been able to tell the five-oh where they were meeting.

Jorge and Mahmud made up different names for him. The Architect, the Planner, the Brain.

They drove the Södra länken highway, the tunnel, straight out toward Nacka.

The regular car, the pickup. But Mahmud’d hung up some green thing with a Muslim text on it in the rearview mirror. He pointed. “It means luck.”

Jorge grinned. “You people believe so much weird shit,
amigo
.”

“What’s weird about it?”

Jorge slapped his finger on the little piece of plastic with the text on
it. It swung back and forth. “What’s this thing supposed to do for our luck? Can you even read it?”

“Quit it. You don’t know shit. That’s the creed. The most important thing we got in our religion. Honest man, it’s the most important thing in the world for everyone.
Walla
.”

“Okay yeah … sure …” Jorge rocked an ironic style. Mahmud talked a bunch of smack: the dude wasn’t more pious than a Sven.

Mahmud kept his eyes on the road.

“Answer me. Can you read it?”

Outside: heavy rain. The windshield wipers were moving steadily back and forth. The Arab didn’t say anything.

“So, can you or can’t you?”

Continued silence.

Finally, Mahmud: “None of your business.”

The parking lot above the beach was completely empty. Farther off: a shuttered snack stand. A deserted jungle gym. Behind the snack stand: a parked Ford Focus. Was it the Finn’s? What a lame car.

Mahmud parked next to the Ford even though there were tons of empty spots all around.

He switched off the engine. They didn’t say anything. A microsecond: the feeling of a little, little bit of stress. A little, little stomachache. Sort of like something was moving in there.

Jorge opened the passenger door. Winked at Mahmud. “Come on,
amigo
, let’s go for a swim.”

They walked down to the lake. Spring this year was ice cold. Jorge was too lightly dressed. Track pants and a hoodie. On top of that, a thin red jacket with Formula 1 logos on the back and arms. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head and tightened it. Then he flipped the collar on the jacket up all the way so it formed a kind of tube around his neck. Only his eyes and nose were visible.

The sand was crusted over but still wet. It made squelching sounds.

Mahmud’d wrapped a scarf high up around his neck. Looked like he belonged in Tahrir Square. He pointed out over the lake. “Can you believe there are Svens who go swimming this time of year?”

Jorge shook his head. “Learn one thing, comrade, you’re never gonna understand
los Suecos
. They’re not from this planet.”

They glimpsed someone, three hundred feet in the distance.

Jorge understood: the meeting spot was perfect. Completely shielded from view. No one could see them from the lake because of the trees. And the dunes were high enough on the other side so that no one could see them from the road either.

The Finn came closer.

Today he was wearing sunglasses despite the weather. A hat and a scarf.

“Where did you park your car?” he asked.

“Next to a Ford Focus,” Jorge said. “Yours?”

The Finn didn’t respond, just said, “Did anyone else drive into the parking lot?”

“No. It was completely empty, except for the Ford.”

“Good. You have to understand that this is like a house of cards. You have to build it the right way, plan the job from the ground up, begin at the beginning. Every single piece has to be perfect. All it takes is one crooked card in the bottom row for the whole shit to come falling down. Do you understand what I’m saying? All it takes is that you stop paying attention for just one second.”

Jorge and Mahmud mmm’ed. Kept their cool.

“Over the past few years,” the Finn went on, “all the hits’ve gotten more complex. You know that. Ten years ago, it was like stepping into a day-care center and juxing the kiddies for their shovels and buckets. You only needed to follow the CIT companies’ routines for a week, and then one more week. After that you knew exactly how they drove, where they drove, and the security they kept around the transports. It doesn’t work that way anymore. The helicopter robbery was incredibly well planned. And it still went to hell. The pigs woke up.”

They talked for a while. Went over Jorge’s recruits. What topped their to-do list. The Finn wouldn’t give up the whole recipe at once. Instead: piece by piece. They’d have to pick up information at spots designated by him. What a cunt.

He continued to preach. “The thing is, you gotta do the right things the right way. You gotta do the right things, and they’ve gotta be done in the right way.”

The dude talked routines. Never talk about the hit on the phone. Never even have a phone on when you’re talking about it. Switch phone plans as often as possible. Don’t talk with anyone on the outside, not even wives, bros, hos.

“Can we meet the insider?” Jorge asked.

“No, of course not,” the Finn said. “That’s not how things work in this business.”

Jorge thought: the Finn was a cocky fucker. Okay, the dude had an insider in his pocket. He had ideas. But who would be taking all the risks? Who would be doing the dirty work?

In J-boy’s head: a pitch-perfect idea. A thought was taking shape. A plan of his own. He was going to make sure he got paid extra for this gig. This CIT had to benefit him more than the Finn.

He was gonna pinch more for himself. Rip the Finn off.

Somehow.

Torsfjäll had sent Hägerström to pick up insider information from a former Serbian hit man. They had mentioned him before, Mrado Slovovic. Sentenced to fourteen years in prison for one of the biggest cocaine-smuggling heists during the 00s.

Mrado wanted his DNA, mug shot, and fingerprint entries erased from the police’s registries at his release. He wanted fifty thousand Swedish kronor in cash, ten thousand euros in an account in Beogradska Bank in Serbia, and the same amount in Universal Savings Bank on Cyprus. He wanted a house with a garden outside Ćačak. And there had to be a plum tree in that garden. Apparently the hit man’s daughter liked fruit.

Torsfjäll claimed that he had promised him half the money and the house if only he spoke with Hägerström. He hadn’t promised him any plum trees.

Mrado was valuable. Hägerström met him twice in the visiting room at the Hall prison. He offered up some general information about his former organization’s hierarchy and structure. Dropped names of restaurants, bars, companies. Above all, he name-dropped men. Everything revolved around the king,
il padre
: Radovan Kranjic.

The Yugos were not like the MC gangs or the gangs from the housing projects. No colors or vests. No stupid names or tattoos.

“All the papers write about the MC guys like they’re some kind of mafia,” Mrado said. “But look what happens when they hit a rough patch. The Bandidos, the Hells Angels, it doesn’t matter. There’re a lot of people who won’t back down, and then they go crawling back.”

The Yugos’ solidity was built on more intimate connections than that. They shared sentiments about Serbia, about honor and glory. They all spoke the same language, liked the same
slivovitz
and
schlag
.
They were close to one another, were sometimes family, in-laws, had houses in the same vacation resorts by the coast or in the Čačak region. They all respected Mr. R. Everyone’s
kum
, as Mrado put it. Everyone’s godfather.

The man whom Mrado apparently hated. But also: the man who had built Mrado up into what he had been. And now: the man someone had tried to assassinate in a parking garage under the Globe Arena.

Hägerström and Torsfjäll tried to see a pattern. Connections between companies and actual owners: the ones who controlled the finances behind the front men’s registered names. Video rental stores, tanning salons, and bars: laundromats. MB Accounting Consultant AB took care of the paperwork. They got lists of restaurants and cafés that paid so-called street insurance to Radovan’s boys. The deductible that had to be paid to the real insurance companies if something happened was higher than what the Yugos demanded for their protection anyway, so most people chose the street variety. Now a few other gangs had joined the competition, but they would get whipped soon enough. The Yugos’ business empire was broad. The bodegas that bought smuggled cigarettes from Russia, the restaurateurs who sold moonshine poured into Absolut Vodka bottles, the coat checks at those same bars that didn’t want to report their income. The potentates who needed protection when they came to Sweden for half-shady business, business leaders and union hotshots who wanted women at their representational parties. And more: lots of business in the gray zone who were involved one way or another. Needed help collecting when Intrum Justitia failed. When the financial crisis hit. Needed protection when they had duped some whiny client.

A lot of what Mrado told him was old news—he had been locked up for more than five years, after all. And when it came to JW, there was even less meat on the bone. Mrado hadn’t seen the guy during the entire time he had been locked up. But he had kept an eye on that little puppy, as he put it.

According to Mrado, the guy was a financial genius who could have amounted to something big in the legal world. But it had gone to hell.