Jens Lapidus - Easy Money

“JW, there’s no point. If you hurt Nenad, I’ll blow your head off. I’m a better shot than you are. Maybe I’ll have time to pop you before you even pull the trigger at Nenad.”

JW remained standing.

Mrado felt how the polyester of the ski mask itched.

Nenad clocked, kept quiet.

Mrado said, “Put your gun away and we’ll forget about this.”

Nothing happened.

Abdulkarim started screaming.

That’s when Mrado was hit with the third surprise of the day. The worst one.

The entrance to the loading dock opened again.

Cops stormed in.

Two shots went off.

Jorge in the midst of the chaos.

JW’d fired. Mrado’d fired.

Nenad on the floor. The police crawling like ants. Despite that, the shot toward Nenad’d spooked them. Confused. Mrado’s shot at JW’d missed. JW on his feet. Unharmed. The cops’d stormed in at just the right moment to distract the Yugo.

Tear gas in the cold-storage facility.

Mrado shot wildly at the cops.

They took cover. Interrupted. Hollered commands. Made threats.

Jorge behind the packing crate.

JW next to Jorge, a box cutter in his hand. Cut off the tape around Jorge’s hands.

Jorge rose to his feet. They looked at each other.

Eyes stung like hell.

They ran toward the back door.

The cops clocked the situation too late. Focused on Mrado, who still had the gun in his hand.

Jorge unlocked the door.

He and JW ran out into a hallway.

No cops.

A fluorescent light was flickering farther down.

They fumbled around in confusion.

A ladder leaning against a wall.

Up.

They climbed toward the ceiling, a hatch.

Took the rungs three at a time.

Heard cops bursting into the hallway.

Jorge looked down. Opened the hatch. They yelled from below, “Freeze, police.” Jorge thought, Fuck you. J-boy’s been around the block and has some golden rules: Never stop. Give it hell. The pigs’ll se pierden.

They got up on the roof. The sheet metal was flat and gray-colored, as if it’d once been white. The sky was clear.

JW seemed out of breath. Still held the Glock in his hand. He probably didn’t have any bullets left. Jorge in better shape, despite the lack of exercise lately.

They ran across the roof.

JW seemed to have a direction. Took the lead.

Jorge yelled, “Where we goin’?”

JW replied, “There’s supposed to be a car, a Volkswagen, parked out front, by the flagpoles.”

Cop cocks poured out of the hatch in the roof, positioned themselves. Took up the chase.

Autotuned voice over a megaphone: “Stop where you are. Put your hands over your heads.”

JW raised his gun, pointed back toward the men. Idiot move.

Jorge heard the cops yelling, “He’s armed.”

He ran faster.

Breathed through his nose.

The smell of his own sweat.

Not stress. Just exertion.

No stress.

Continued over the roof.

The megaphone again.

JW held the Glock in his hand. Turned back to the cops. A sharp sound was heard. Was he the one who’d shot?

Shit-Jorge hadn’t thought he still had bullets left.

Another shot sounded.

JW fell. Grabbed his thigh.

What the fuck were the cops doing?

No time to think.

He rushed on alone.

Harmony in the runner’s stride.

Jorge with flow. Jorge with rhythm.

In a trance: All he knew was how to run.

Remembered his loops around the Österåker rec yard. Remembered his homespun rope tight over the wall.

Ran so fast.

Toward the edge of the roof.

Didn’t even look down.

Just jumped. True to habit.

Farther fall than from the Österåker and the Västerbron bridge.

A cracking sound in one of his feet.

He saw the Volkswagen.

Fuck the pain.

Limped up to it.

Broke the window. Opened the door.

The driver’s seat, covered in shards of glass.

He tore out the ignition wires from under the wheel.

He could hot-wire a car better than anyone.

The king.

The car started up.

Adiós, losers.

Paola should’ve given birth by now.

Jorge lit a cig, leaned back. A rickety lounge chair. A beach umbrella with a Pepsi ad on it.

His foot felt considerably better.

Ko Samet: not one of the most popular islands. Farther up the bay than Ko Tao and Ko Samui. No Swedish charter trips, no German mass tourism, no families with children. Instead: cheap bungalows, solitary beaches, and backpackers with greasy hair. On top of that: single middle-aged men and Thai whores.

Half his stack exchanged into dollars was packed into the shoulder bag next to the lounge chair. The rest in an account at HSBC. The bank with offices all over the world.

Suited him well.

The beach was almost empty of people.

He groped with his hand to make sure the bag was still there.

He thought back.

He’d made it. Jorgius Maximus. Driven the car like a maniac despite his sprained ankle. Obvious comparison: like the escape from Österåker, except no planned escape route. They were less than a minute behind him. He drove into Midsommarkransen. A lot of houses and narrow streets. The cops couldn’t keep him in sight like on the freeway. He ditched the car by Brännkyrka Gymnasium. Boosted a new one in under thirty seconds. They didn’t clock shit. The Miracle Man strikes again. Shook the cops. Outbrained the 5-0.

First thing he did after that: drove to Fahdi’s apartment. Had the keys on him. Limped into the bedroom. To the closet. Took out the shotgun he’d used in Hallonbergen. Stuffed it in a paper shopping bag. Limped out.

Had second thoughts. Back into the bedroom. Grabbed the assault rifle and Fahdi’s other weapons, too. Wrapped them in his sheets.

Fahdi was a friend. If he survived, he wouldn’t have to do more time than necessary.

Went into the kitchen. On the kitchen table were, as usual, scales, Red Line baggies, manila envelopes, mirrors, and razor blades. Three hundred grams of blow in different dime bags.

Jorge put the bags in the paper bag.

Rummaged. Turned the place upside down, soundlessly. Gloved hands. Didn’t leave a trace. Found what he was looking for: the keys to the storage units.

Down to the street. Boosted a new bucket.

Threw the sheet with the weapons into Edsviken Bay.

Drove around for the rest of the day. Shurgard Self-Storage in Kungens Kurva, Högdalen, Danderyd. Emptied the stash spots.

The next day: the stashes in Rissne, Solna, and Vällingby. Total harvest: 2.7 pounds of blow.

The following three days were hectic. He sold it all off at a loco dumped price. Seven hundred a gram. Flew as fast as frosted bottles at a beer garden on a warm spring day.

Got a half-assed passport. Dished way too much for it, but there wasn’t any time to play cold.

Ordered tix on a charter flight to Bangkok. Chanced it.

It worked. No one checks passports too closely on an outbound flight.

He left the country within four days of the fiasco in the cold-storage facility.

Not the way he’d planned it.

If it was a boy, Paola’d promised him she’d name him Jorge. A real Jorgelito. Even if he could never live a Sven life, at least Paola could. Let Jorgelito grow up in peace. Without Social Services hags, racist teachers, cock-sucking cops, and Rodriguez. Jorge would create some structure, would send every cent he could to his sister’s baby.

A pale European man walked down the beach hand in hand with a young Thai woman.

Jorge closed his eyes. He’d had enough of johns, but still had a few left to pop.

Thought about JW back in the cold-storage facility. JW hadn’t wanted to understand at first. Jorge’d kept pushing. “I’ve seen your sister raped and beaten in a movie. By those guys. You gotta believe me.” JW stared straight ahead. Mumbled, “Shut up, Jorge. Shut up already.” Jorge kept going, whispered just loud enough for JW to hear him clearly, “Believe me. You’ve picked the wrong side. I get it if you can’t rethink this. You’ve invested in these guys. But your sister was some kind of prostitute. Those Yugo Mafia guys’ve murdered her.” It was then that JW seemed to react. He turned to Jorge. Said, “Shut up before I fucking club you.” Nenad and Mrado still didn’t seem to care about JW and Jorge-they were slicing cabbages, pouring bags of blow. Abdulkarim kept screaming. But Jorge could tell he was listening now. “JW, I’ve been watching those guys for months. I know what kind of business they’re in.” Jorge told him quickly about the brothel in Hallonbergen. He didn’t mention the shots at the pimp and the brothel madam. Instead, he described the whore party out at Smådalarö. The way the johns carried on, the way the girls looked, who was there. Underscored the latter by telling him about the parking lot outside the enormous mansion. The luxury rides in a row. And that’s when JW suddenly got in a hell of a hurry.