Two Soldiers (12 page)

eight days to go

She sat on the sofa and watched the movie and even though
she’d seen more than an hour now, she still had no idea why everyone on the screen was running and why someone was shooting. She didn’t feel well and it was hard to concentrate when her stomach was churning, it wasn’t long since she’d thrown up and she was about to be sick again.

Wanda tried to lie down without touching Big Ali’s feet; it eased off then, was easier to breathe. She had seen the kid with the gold chain leave the kitchen carrying a red rucksack at some point in the evening or night. He’d looked straight at her, seemed proud, she’d heard them laughing loudly out there, then someone had opened the fridge, more cans of beer, and they’d laughed even more.

She lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply.

She didn’t want to. But she had to. Gabriel had looked at her as he went into the kitchen and the movie had started—it wasn’t his kind face, it was the one she didn’t like as much,
you’ve got three apartments left, bitch
. And then turned back, didn’t expect an answer, didn’t notice her swallow, look away.

She didn’t like it when he called her bitch. But when Big Ali did the same, or Bruno or Jon, she didn’t hear it, not really. Gabriel, it hurt more when he said it, she wanted to explain to him that it was like being stabbed in the chest every time.

One more cigarette, more deep drags, until she suddenly felt sick again and threw up in the bucket by her feet.

She had three apartments left to go.

She had fixed two, Råby Allé 124, Råby Backe 4, as well as three cellar storerooms in Råby Allé 16, Råby Allé 143, Råby Backe 192.
They were all to be at different addresses in Råby, that was important, and no windows that anyone looked in on.

The first one was quite old, almost twenty-five, and her husband was doing twenty-two months for drugs; she’d screamed and spat at her and Wanda had raised the offer to five thousand a week, the old bird had screamed again but taken the money and left her the keys. The second one had been easier, nineteen and unemployed and her man was doing time for armed robbery, three thousand a week was a lot of money.

This one, Råby Allé 172, fifth floor,
HOLMGREN
on the door, she was twenty-one and her man was a lot older, sentenced to fourteen months for assault. They’d done some things together before, but after he’d gone to prison, they’d seen a lot more of each other, she was called Linn and Wanda knew her and liked her and had protested when Gabriel had said that they wanted her apartment.

She didn’t want to ring the bell.

She rang the bell.

It took a while—eye to the peephole—bare feet padding on the straw mat in the hall.

Linn was pleased, she always was when Wanda came to see her, smiled and they gave each other a hug and she asked her to come in.

Quite a small apartment. But nice. Two small rooms, lots of white and quite a lot of glass on the big shelf beside the TV. Wanda had always felt comfortable here, with Linn, she was as warm as the apartment.

She asked if she’d like some tea. And she knew that Wanda liked half milk, half tea, not even Gabriel knew that.

They drank two big cups, and it sloshed around in her empty stomach. It was easy to laugh here, she hadn’t been on Linn’s sofa for a while and had forgotten how much she missed it; it was a long time since she’d laughed like this.

Linn was just about to pour a third cup when she felt it was time to say something.

“We need your apartment.”

At first Linn didn’t understand.

“In eight days.”

Wanda was forced to explain more.

“For four, maybe six weeks.”

When Linn finally did understand, she just sat there and didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at her.
But it’s me that lives here
. She didn’t ask any questions, didn’t protest.
But I don’t want to
. They rarely did, they knew who Gabriel was and who Leon was, how it worked.

Linn just looked down at the table, then out of the window, Råby at night.

“But you’ll get three thousand a week.”

Wanda got up from the white sofa.

“And you’ll get it back, after.”

The third cup of tea stood there, untouched.

“In eight days, don’t forget.”

She had fixed another one. Only two to go. And only one more cellar room.

She opened the door, looked at Linn and the apartment that she’d always liked to visit, Linn who had lived here for quite a while, Linn who was always warm and friendly. Wanda gave her a hug, held her tight like she always did.

six days to go

No one else in the unit.

Leon was sitting in the TV corner, cigarette in his hand, the guard in the fish tank hadn’t seen him or couldn’t be bothered. Some program on TV, probably the news, it was the sound he wanted, anything to drown out the silence.

The first of September. Soon autumn. But still warm outside, summer if he sat in a sheltered spot out in the yard, near one of the walls.

Five months since he came here.

The last snow had just melted, it was nearly spring. It was easy to forget—that there were seasons out there.

He’d been alone in the unit all week, still refusing to work and being reported every day as being on strike. But not tomorrow, he’d go to work again, go to the workshop and make red wooden bricks for toy cars and oblong metal doors for lampposts. If he refused to work again he’d be moved to solitary confinement and he had to be here, for exactly six more days.

As the phone he shared with Mihailovic was still tapped, he’d used the one that he paid a guard in Block E two thousand kronor in cash for every call, to phone Gabriel a few times to talk about Javad Hangaround, who wouldn’t be able to stand up for a long time and about double deliveries from Afghanistan via Russia and Torneå that would pay for the apartments for as long as they needed them and the bags and boxes in the elevator shafts that were to become something that no one had ever done before, and he’d spoken to Reza about the wall at Österåker prison and to Uros about the gate at Storboda prison and it felt like all the waiting was unbearable.

But they never talked about the inmate that the staff in D2 Left had found on his knees with his head in the space between the end of the bed and the table that was attached to the wall, nor about the TV cable that was tied around a large book at one end and around his neck at the other.

He no longer existed. He had talked. And would never become the ninth.

But the one who came over now, just as Leon lit up another cigarette, the one who was in the greatest rush of the men returning from a day in the workshop or doing the cleaning and laundry, or the visitors’ apartments or classrooms or even on the grass between the walls and the inner fence that was looked after by trustworthy prisoners, the one who came almost flying into the unit, he soon would be.

You can trust someone who kills for his brothers.

“We’ve got the wire brush.”

Alex pointed to his right pocket, Marko stood a few steps behind, his face flushed with expectation and joy.

“And Smackhead’s sorting it out right now.”

They opened the door to Cell 10 without knocking, and the bastard smiled and Leon wanted to smash the parted lips, but it was Marko’s day and he unfurled his clenched fist, he’d punch him tomorrow.

“You can go and lie down on the bed then.”

Marko unbuttoned his pants and pulled them off; even his white thighs were flushed.

“No fucking lights.”

Leon stretched over to the bedside light and switched it off.

“I like having it on.”

At night
.

“But it’s the day.”

“I always have it on when I work, I can see better.”

I have it on at night
.

He couldn’t help himself, the clenched fist right in the middle of that fucking smile, bleeding parted lips.

“Bedside lights are always off during the day.”

The thin fingers belonged to a thirty-five-year-old man who was about to turn on the light again, but stopped himself and instead fiddled with five bristles from a wire brush and a glass bottle of ink beside an empty glass tube on the small table. The proper one he’d made a few weeks ago had been confiscated after a cell search. But he still had the ink, immersed in a milk carton in the fridge, and what he was about to do always worked well; it took a while longer and it was maybe more difficult to get even edges, but he’d done it so many times before—the sharp bristles from the brush were like needles, the glass tube was the body—he normally put one wire at a time in the tube, let each new wire stick out a bit farther than the previous one, like steps, and then secured them by winding around some cotton thread.

Marko lay with his bare right leg stretched out on the bed and Leon looked at his face. Marko’s eyes shone as they had never done before, his cheeks still flushed, a restless tongue constantly licking his lips, and Leon recognized his own longing from way back, to belong to something that was greater than himself. Then the boy who would soon carry their name closed his eyes, those gleaming eyes didn’t want to watch when Smackhead’s hand stretched out the skin on his thigh and the other dipped the needles attached to a glass tube in tattoo ink and then stabbed hard with great control—two needles lifted the skin and three pressed in the ink.

Marko opened his eyes, looked at Leon and smiled even though Smackhead was puncturing him again and again, to print
GHETTO
drop by drop with the improvised needles and write
SOLDIERS
what was going to be his life from now on. Six years of running errands in secure homes and young offenders’ institutions and then the initiation test and he had done it and he was no longer lonely.

———

They had been eight.

Now they were nine.

———

Someone who kills for his brothers can be trusted.

four days to go

Photographs from a school yearbook.

José Pereira absentmindedly ran his finger over one face at a time. To break the law and secretly cut out pictures of pupils in fifth and sixth grade—children—in order to investigate serious organized crime was not something anyone had mentioned at police college all those years ago.

More than a week had passed. And what he did know was that two bullets in the knees and a TV cable tied around a neck were in some way connected with the group that had changed names and were on the move. He knew nothing more about them. He had nothing—door-to-door inquiries, questioning, information sources—fear kept a rein on those who hadn’t heard or seen anything.

He carried the open file with both hands as he wandered aimlessly around his office in the Section Against Gang Crime, between the two walls of staring eyes. The plastic sleeve with
GHETTO
SOLDIERS
and
ASSOCIATED
, he leafed through the faces, past the hangarounds, past the prospects to the category he had created himself,
no criminal record
and
kids
, photographs from the local primary school yearbooks of boys who couldn’t yet be IDed, or found in official police registers. He knew, and yet didn’t know, and so had to look farther afield. If you called it a chat rather than questioning, if you let a guardian or social worker sit in, Pereira could talk to them one at a time. He’d begin with the one in the blurred picture down on the left, the one who had already been called to this room on several occasions before, with his slicked-back hair and thick gold chain.

———

Eddie was in the common room with his feet up on the rectangular table that bore deep wounds from his knife, the corner near the locker that was home to several kids in sixth grade, where they sometimes played cards. They hadn’t put a new window in yet—the one that he’d kicked in and then wriggled through—it was covered with a piece of plywood and layers of brown tape, so you couldn’t see out.

Afternoon and only two classes to go.

He’d been sitting here since the morning and he felt lonely. It was totally quiet. He didn’t like it when it was so quiet, it clawed at his throat and chest. The others had classes, but he didn’t go anymore—being lonely in there with all his classmates was worse than being lonely out here.

He heard the main door opening. And footsteps. An adult’s footstep.

“Pig bastard.”

He wasn’t sitting with his feet on the table anymore, he got up and stood too close to the man who was at least forty and was wearing jeans and a jacket, trying to look young.

“I’m going to kill you.”

———

The boy stood up and came close to him, like they always did.

José Pereira never allowed himself to be part of it—to stand in front of them, measuring them up—colleagues who unwittingly fell for it had already lost.

“You’re going to come and see me. To talk about things that you and I need to talk about.”

He had looked through the file for
no criminal record
and
kids
linked to the group who now called themselves Ghetto Soldiers and a twelve-year-old who was registered as living in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother and little five-year-old sister in Råby Allé caught his eye. He’d seen his face around for a while, it looked like the ones who had been Jensen and Milton six years ago and were now serving long sentences in high security prisons,
observed boy, eleven–twelve years old, in conversation with Leon Jensen and Gabriel Milton at
Råby metro station, southern exit, a face that had increased its activity over the past two years, usual mini-gangsta outfit, thick gold chain, on his way to the apartment in Råby Allé 67 used by Gabriel Milton
, the face that had gone furthest among the kids and took the greatest risks.

The face he was now looking at.

“I’m not going to answer your questions, pig bastard.”

“I’ve already spoken to your mother. And told her to come with you.”

The boy came even closer, stared at the policeman, held up his hand in front of the grown man’s eyes, screamed when Pereira grabbed hold of it and gripped it firmly.

“Don’t you touch me!”

He didn’t let go, maybe held even tighter.

“On Wednesday, you’ll sit beside your mother in my office and we’ll talk about what happened to Javad Kittu.”

Eddie stood still, swallowed.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Someone shot him. Twice in the knees. You know who. And I want to know too.”

“Javad?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s that?”

José Pereira didn’t smile, didn’t sigh. He might still be only a child. But he was already someone who without hesitation would harm another person if it helped his standing in the group.

“Wednesday.”

“You can’t question me.”

You’re standing there and just don’t
want
to. Just like you’re sitting here because you don’t
want
to go into that classroom over there.

“You’re twelve years old. I can talk to you if your mother is present.”

I’ve regularly picked you up, at home to begin with, when the school reported you, and when your social worker asked for a hand. She doesn’t often do that anymore. Even though that makes you not
want
to even more.

“Pigs who shoot dogs deserve to die! D’you understand? I’m not coming.”

“It’s your choice. That or be taken into care.”

“Fucking pig bastard . . . then I want a lawyer.”

“Lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“You can have a nanny, if you like.”

———

You run errands. You hide guns. You sell methamphetamines and heroin. You keep watch during the armed robbery of a jeweler’s shop, you take money from your classmates to threaten the teachers and abuse the teachers’ children, you fix a getaway car and burn it afterwards, you carry the tools for burgling a villa in Nacka and help take the goods away, you tell shop owners in Råby that rates have gone up and collect fees for protection that they never get. You will be exploited every morning and evening until you’re fifteen, until it’s you that’s doing the exploiting.

———

The fucking pig was holding him and he couldn’t get free. Then he managed. And ran toward his locker, opened it,
I’m going to kill you
, the towel was lying there under his math book and he wanted to get it out and use what was inside it, he held the gun in his hand and then let go again, he mustn’t touch it, mustn’t, Gabriel had said.

———

He tried to shut the locker door when the pig came over, but he couldn’t, not with the gun in the towel and the rucksack with explosives, maybe if he moved one of the files, if he pushed hard with his shoulder. The pig just stood there and watched him, and didn’t realize there was more than books in the way and then he left and Eddie shouted after the bastard coward, but louder now,
I’m going to kill you
.

He only realized afterwards. He hadn’t thought about it when it was all happening.

The deserted common room wasn’t as empty anymore.

He was alone again, but it didn’t feel it, the cop had been here, they had shouted at each other, and it wasn’t quiet anymore.

He walked out of the school building into the air that was not scheduled into timetables or classrooms, walked across the playground quickly into Råby, out of breath when he started to run along the asphalt walkways to the apartment with the orange door.

———

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

It was Jon who opened the door.

“I need to talk to Gabriel.”

You’ll keep it
.

He was still out of breath, he hadn’t had time to wait for the elevator so his words were stuttered.

“It’s . . . important . . .”

“You’re not supposed to report before tonight.”

And you’ll keep it until I tell you that it’s time for us to use it
.

“The rucksack, I . . .”

Jon opened the door a crack more and pointed to the doormat.

“You wait here.”

Until next time one of us is hauled in by the pigs
.

He stood exactly where Jon had pointed. The others were in the kitchen, he could hear them, all of them.

“Well . . . what’s so important then?”

“Pereira.”

“What about him?”

“I have to go and see him.”

Jon almost smiled, gave a clear nod toward the sitting room. He was allowed to go in. He could go farther in. The sofa and movies and TV that was on with the volume turned up, but no one was there and he followed Jon’s back into the kitchen.

Gabriel was standing in the same place as the last time when he’d been making the bomb, alone by the short end of the table and in front of the fridge and sink. Big Ali opposite, Bruno to his right. They were all looking at something lying on the table. A pile of what looked
like jackets. Eddie knew what they were. Bulletproof vests. Gabriel lifted up the one that was on top and put it down in front of him, then opened the boxes that were there, a big needle and a thick square bit of cloth; he positioned the piece of material on the chest of the vest and started to sew; the needle was thick and it was difficult to get through both the vest material and the badge.

“Ballistic neck protection. Ballistic shoulder protection. Kevlar protection plates. The police don’t have anything like these.”

Four stitches along each side, sixteen in total. Gabriel tried the badge, it was pretty secure. Then he put the vest on for the first time. And Eddie stood there in the doorway and was allowed to watch, it looked so good with their new name.

“Hold out your arms.”

Gabriel had seen him and was pointing at his arms, showed him how he wanted Eddie to stand.

“And then put this on over your head.”

The bulletproof vest, Gabriel’s new one. He seemed to want Eddie to put it on.

“Like this.”

Eddie was uncertain. Should he? Gabriel’s bulletproof vest? With the new name on the right-hand breast?

He wasn’t sure if he actually did it. Or whether he just thought that he did. Sometimes it’s like that, your arms just go out of their own accord. But it felt like he was holding them out from this body and like Gabriel took the vest off and put it on him.

Gabriel’s bulletproof vest
.

That was probably why he didn’t react until after it had happened. The gun looked like one that had previously been in his school locker, a Smith & Wesson .45 caliber, the kind that produced a flash at the muzzle with every shot, a flash as long as his hand.

Gabriel fired two shots.

The first bullet hit him on the chest, just beside the badge. The second hit him in the middle of the stomach. It hurt more than anything he’d ever experienced, but he didn’t scream, you can’t when you’ve been winded. He couldn’t stay standing where he was
either, his legs just crumpled, and he was on his knees facing the wall and there was still no sound, even though he was screaming and screaming.

They were laughing. Jon took several pictures on his cell phone. Gabriel pulled the bulletproof vest off him and they all gathered around. You could barely see where the bullets had hit, the material was undamaged, and when they felt it with their fingertips, the plate inside was dented, nothing more.

While Bruno sewed a badge on his new garment, Gabriel put his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and started to walk toward the sitting room. His ears were sore, ached and ached—he only noticed now that the pain in his chest and stomach was easing—the explosions had been loud and had echoed in the bare kitchen.

Gabriel wanted him to sit down on the sofa. He did, sat down on the sofa, he’d had tears in his eyes a moment ago and it had been difficult to breathe, but it was easier now, and the tears didn’t spill over, not here, he’d just been allowed to wear their bulletproof vest.

Gabriel sat down beside him, took hold of his T-shirt, and pulled it up, revealing the pale skin around two big round red marks. Eddie touched them gently with his finger, they were sore.

“They’ll get bigger and softer and in a few days they’ll go blue.”

Gabriel smiled and showed him his own stomach, the thickened, uneven, damaged skin.

“Fuck it, you look like me.”

Eddie couldn’t stop touching the tender red circles, they went in and would soon turn blue.

Gabriel had shot at him. And he’d stayed standing.

It would be fun to go to the police.

“I’m to go to Pereira. Day after tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“Javad.”

Gabriel wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked at him. With eyes that sometimes hit you.

“And?”

“I don’t talk to no pig cunts.”

Gabriel continued to look at him with eyes that sometimes lashed out, but didn’t ask any more questions.

“You said . . . the rucksack. That I . . .”

“When you’re done. When Pereira has asked his questions, which
you haven’t answered
.”

The eyes again. Eddie nodded. Several times until Gabriel was satisfied.

“Then you say that you’ve got to go for a piss and choose the one just outside the room. Put the rucksack on the floor. Open the top of the cistern—the thing you lean your back against when you’re having a shit—and lay it upside down on the sink. Take the plastic tube out of the rucksack, peel off the paper on the sticking pads, and secure it to the underside of the cistern lid. And finally, before putting it back, cut off the wires that stick out from the end of the tube. Each one. It’s important that they’re as short as possible.”

Eddie watched Gabriel’s hands as they cut an invisible wire in the air. And when they took out the Rizla papers and put them on the table, filled a skin with tobacco from the pouch and two drops from the triangular bottle that always hung on a gold chain around his neck, when they rolled the cigarette, lit it and put it to his mouth, inhaled, and then passed it over to Eddie.

A deep drag, he smiled.

Gabriel had offered him cannabis oil on the sofa.

He trusted him to do the right thing in an interview with Pereira. He’d explained to him about the rucksack.