Jens Lapidus - Easy Money

No one showed up.

The puke stank.

He was finished. Caput. The Yugos were smarter than he’d thought. He should’ve been even more cautious. Must’ve been the hangover. How long’d Mrado and the other guy been following him? They weren’t on the bus. They hadn’t been on his subway car. Hadn’t seen them at the bus stop at KTH. Hadn’t seen any one single car following the bus. Had they trailed him all the way from Sollis? How’d they known he was at Vadim’s? Suspicions: The Russian fucker must’ve leaked. Or someone at the bar the night before. Had people recognized him? Cunts.

He tried to move a smaller body part-an index finger. Couldn’t feel it at first. Three seconds later, his entire arm was pounding with pain. Too much pain. He screamed aloud. Didn’t give a fuck if the Yugos were still around.

Someone yelled his name again.

He vomited.

Prayers on his lips: La madre que te parió. Thoughts in his head: Who can I trust now? Sergio? Eddie? Ashur? Can I get in touch with Mama? Do I dare call my sister? His flight from the big cage’d been smooth, slick. Speedy. Best one yet. But life after-Jorgelito’d thought too short-term. Thought it’d be easy. Same mistake as all the others-been weak, partied. Needed social interaction.

He tried to open his eyes.

Fir trees all around. The light peeking through the branches painted the ground a spotty pattern. Brown, bumpy, bare. No birdsong.

What would happen now? It was one thing to risk your own life to get at Radovan’s cash. But to risk your sister’s?

He thought about his two tattoos. On his left shoulder was a smiling devil. All in black. On his back, a crucifix with the text: The Man, in Gothic lettering. He’d thought he was the man with the master plan, when really, he was just a loser. Fucked over.

Down for the count.

A deluxe guy on a walk in the enchanted forest. JW was looking for Jorge. Two alternatives: Either the Chilean was lying wounded somewhere in the woods or the Yugos’d taken him with them.

He started on the right-hand side. Walked in a zigzag pattern. First about ten yards forward, then crossed down to the left, then ten yards forward again.

Thought about Spaceballs. “Comb the desert!” the Darth Vader caricature orders. In the next scene, his helpers are pulling huge combs over the sand. Mel Brooks-so lame and yet so witty.

JW combed the forest.

Didn’t find Jorge among the trees.

An hour and twenty minutes earlier, JW’d reached Malmvägen just in time to see someone who looked like Jorge leave the building. Detective JW took a few steps back, behind the corner of the house-which proved to be the right move. He peered out. Saw an enormous man step out of a car that was way too slick and follow the Chilean. Something wasn’t right. The man never walked up to Jorge. Kept a few yards back. It was obvious after a while: The giant was following the Chilean.

The man fulfilled all the criteria of the classic Yugo gangster look: mid-length leather jacket, scarf, black jeans, leather shoes. A neck that put the Hulk to shame. His arms hung out along his sides at an angle, looked like he was constantly carrying a TV. Short, dirty-blond hair, straight-cut bangs. His jaws revealed a hard-core testosterone diet.

Why the hell had Abdulkarim put him in this situation? JW felt like a failed police investigator. Didn’t dare approach Jorge, even though he was right on his tail. The biggest question was who the huge Yugo was. Did the Serbian Mafia want to put Jorge’s coke know to use, too?

He kept trailing them. Up to the commuter rail station. JW remained standing at the bottom of the escalators and heard the train pull into the station. He ran up and jumped into a car. He could see the Yugo through the glass doors leading to the next car. Thank God.

Total tension. JW completely forgot about the Camilla thing.

The huge Yugo got off at T-Centralen. He couldn’t see Jorge, but JW assumed the Yugo was on it. Followed him down.

Got off at KTH. Created a distance between himself and the Yugo. Saw Jorge hanging around a bus stop. JW walked with deliberate steps toward the same bus stop. It had to look like his one and only goal in life was to get to bus 620. He passed the huge Yugo on his way there. Two yards between them. JW couldn’t decide if it was suspicious that he was going to the same bus stop as Jorge, but he felt the Yugo’s presence as fiercely as though they’d been standing eye-to-eye in a cramped elevator. The man exuded authority.

A couple of people got on after Jorge, but the Yugo wasn’t on the bus. Had he given up? Jorge was squeezed in next to a middle-aged lady with a bag on her lap. The woman’s two kids sat in the seats in front of them, eating ice-cream cones. One of the seats behind him was free; the other was occupied by an old man in a baseball hat. This wasn’t the time to chat up the Chilean; it’d have to wait until he got off. JW took a seat in the way back.

He’d gotten off at the same stop as the Chilean. Followed a couple hundred yards behind him. After a while, a Yugo came running. Understood: They were here. Thirty seconds later, he heard screaming. Panicked. What the fuck was he supposed to do? He ran into the woods. Stood still, listened. Waited. That’s where he was now. Was going to look for Jorge. But he couldn’t see him. After he’d crisscrossed over a few hundred yards, JW switched sides. It was worth spending another hour searching.

He heard a scream. Not as loud as the previous ones, but still-painful.

He tried to walk in the direction of the sound. Looked around. Saw dark trees, pine needle-covered paths. In some places, the branches of the fir trees dragged on the ground, hiding what might be found underneath. JW stepped up, lifted the branches, looked under them. Scratched himself on needles. The forest wasn’t exactly his scene. And anyway, he was about to shit a brick, he was so scared.

Eight yards farther up, he saw plastic bags filled with groceries strewn on the ground. JW followed the trail. Farther in, he spotted a huddled-up human. Was it the Chilean? Was he alive?

JW looked around. No Yugos in sight. He called out. No answer. Got closer. The guy looked dead. JW knelt down beside him. Said Jorge’s name. Really didn’t want to find a murdered person.

Finally, he got a reaction.

With his eyes still shut, Jorge mumbled, “Get outta here.”

JW didn’t know what to say. Thought, Relief the guy’s alive. But how much help does he need? Not a good idea to get an ambulance involved.

“Hi. How are you feeling? Is there anything I can do?”

“Beat it.”

“Nice to hear you’re alive. I know who you are. I recognize you. I’ve been looking for you for hours.”

Jorge opened one eye. He had a slight immigrant lilt to his speech. “And who the hell are you?”

“My name is Johan. I’ve no idea who did this to you or why. You look like shit. Probably need medical care. You’ve got to listen to me. I’ve got good news.”

“I said, beat it. You’ve got fuckin’ nothing to do with me. I’ve never even seen your face.”

“Get it together. Your name is Jorge Salinas Barrio and you escaped from Österåker on August thirty-first. You’ve been on the run ever since. That can’t be easy. You know the cocaine business better than anyone else. You’re the king of coke in the Stockholm area. Are you listening, or what?”

Jorge lay still. Didn’t say anything. But he also didn’t say no.

“I work for an Arab-Abdulkarim Haij. Do you know who that is?”

Jorge looked up again. JW read it as: Keep talking.

“He keeps me in the C. I, like, deal to the Stureplan crowd and make a killing. You can get up to eleven hundred a gram from them. That’s not bad. But imagine if we could push the purchase price even more. That’s what we’re going to do when we expand. And we know you; you’ve got no life without our help. There are clearly others, besides the police, who’ve got it in for you. You can forget about them now. We’ll help you, get you back on your feet. Fix a passport, pesetas, whatever you need. The police don’t stand a chance. Not those Yugos, either. If you work for us, we’ll make you a rich man.”