Jens Lapidus - Easy Money

JW kept talking. About his night out. About his buddies’ crazy antics. About the snort rush. Babbled on. Sophie was a good listener, asked follow-up question at the right pauses, nodded in the right places, laughed at the right jokes. Sophie knew part of the true story-she knew that JW dealt to the boyz-but she didn’t know the scale of it. Not by a long stretch.

Sophie leaned back. They were quiet for a moment. Eavesdropped on the conversation at the table next to them.

Finally she asked, “What other friends do you have besides the boys?”

In JW’s head: process of analysis in turbogear. Fumbled for false phrases. What the fuck was he gonna say? That the boyz were his only friends-appear like someone with few friends. Make up other friends? Like Casper. No, he couldn’t keep more lies straight in his head. The answer: compromise, tell her half the story.

“I hang out with another group sometimes. You’re gonna laugh.”

“Why would I laugh?”

“’Cause they’re, like, blatte guys, sort of.”

“ Blatte guys?” Honest surprise.

“Kind of, yeah. We party, work out. Chill.” JW felt a need to explain himself. “They’re cool, actually.”

“I would never have expected that of you. Sometimes I wonder how well we really know each other. When do I get to meet them?”

A miscalculation. JW hadn’t thought she’d want to get involved. Usually she didn’t take much of an interest in people outside her immediate circle. Now she suddenly wanted to meet Abdulkarim, Fahdi, and Jorge.

A joke, or what?

JW made an effort. Had to maintain the mask. He said, “Maybe. Sometime.” His need to change the subject got desperate. He started talking about Sophie instead. That usually worked.

Brought up her relationship with Anna and other Lundsberg chicks. Relationship talk. Sophie’s favorite. JW wondered if she knew what’d happened between him and her friend Anna at the rager at Lövhälla Manor. But why should she care? It was almost six months ago.

Sophie reminded him of Camilla. It was frightening.

Camilla was like Sophie except for one difference-Camilla hadn’t been as savvy somehow.

And then it hit him. It still felt like Sophie was playing a game with him, playing hard to get, maintaining a distance, and maybe it was just her way of saying that she wanted him to give her intimacy. Let down his guard. Let her in. Tell her who he really was. Tell her all he didn’t dare say. Just like Camilla’d been. Maintained a hard shell and a distance toward Mom and Dad, especially toward Bengt, when it was probably just a way to shut down because there wasn’t really any intimacy available at home. Playing hard because she didn’t dare be vulnerable. And was it that lack of intimacy that’d lured her to that fucking Jan Brunéus? JW wasn’t even sure he wanted to know.

A couple of days later, planning for the London trip was in full swing. JW bought tickets. Booked luxury hotel rooms. Made sure they were written up on club guest lists: Chinawhite, Mayfair Club, Moore’s. Arranged for a private London guide, booked a limo for their personal use, made reservations at the sweetest restaurants, looked up the best strip joints, got in touch with scalpers for tix to Chelsea games, researched the directions to the luxury department stores and checked when they were open: Harvey Nichols, Harrods, Selfridges.

Abdulkarim would be pleased. The only thing that irritated JW was that he didn’t know whom they were meeting and why. The only info Abdulkarim’d given him: “This is big business.”

They often hung out at Fahdi’s. JW, Fahdi, Jorge, and Abdulkarim sometimes. Fahdi watched old Van Damme flicks and pornos. Talked about dudes he’d crushed and Evil with a capital E: USA. JW and Jorge mind-mapped their contacts and dealers. Planned new storage spots, safe turf for deals, sales strategies, and, above all, import. A massive import from Brazil was up first.

The Chilean exuded hate and resolve. The guy had his side project, revenge against the guys who’d torn him to pieces.

JW generally felt relaxed when he was with them. They were unaffected compared to his Stureplan buds. Somewhat B-list in their habits, but at the core they basically shared the same values as the boyz-chicks, money, living it up.

One night at Fahdi’s he realized there were aspects to the C biz he’d been spared from dealing with.

JW, Jorge, and Fahdi were on the couches. Had made calls to dealers and arranged drop-off spots.

The TV was on in the background. Slow-motion action scenes from Mission Impossible II streamed out.

Enjoyable, bloody kicks and punches. For Fahdi-inspiration.

He started telling them about a guy he’d shot two years earlier.

JW laughed at first.

Jorge wanted to hear more.

He asked Fahdi, “Aren’t you scared you’ll be put away?”

Fahdi laughed and said proudly, “Me, never scared. Scared is for fags.”

“So whattya do if the Five-Oh show up?”

“You seen Léon?”

“ ¿Qué? ”

“Don’t get it?”

“What, you got heat at home?”

“ Habibi, obviously. You wanna see my arsenal?”

JW was honestly curious. They followed Fahdi to his bedroom. The closet door creaked. Fahdi fumbled in the dark. Threw something on the bed. At first, JW didn’t see what it was. Then he understood. In front of him on the bed was a sawed-off shotgun, a Winchester. Double barrel. Five yellow boxes of shells of the same make as the shotgun. Two Glock pistols. One machete with duct tape around the grip. Fahdi’s face glowed with joy, like that of a happy child. “And I show you my best thing.” He leaned into the closet again. Brought out an AK-5. “Swedish military issue. Hot, yeah?”

JW played cool. Really, he was shocked-Fahdi’s home was a veritable Eagle’s Nest. A loaded war bunker in the gray projects… with the safety off.

Jorge grinned.

When JW got home later that night, he didn’t call Sophie. He had trouble falling asleep.

Mrado debuted as peace mediator. Worked well. Thought, Maybe I could’ve had a career in the UN. Then he cut himself off. Sodomize the shit out of the UN. They betrayed Serbia.

He’d been having meetings with head honchos for three weeks now. Magnus Lindén, a hard-boiled, half-cobbed right-wing extremist. Leader of the Wolfpack Brotherhood. Ahmad Gafani, leader of the Fittja Boys, with the classic ACAB (all cops are bastards) tattoo on his neck. Naser, leader of the Albanians. Hardly spoke Swedish but gypped the Swedes out of millions every year. Men with too much power. And yet, men without potent plans. The Yugos were still better, he realized. The rest of ’em needed to shape up. Get organized.

The Hells Angels and the Bandidos’d resumed the war. Two people were already dead, one from each club. The Fittja Boys were fighting over cuts of three CIT heists they’d done with guys from the Original Gangsters. At the Kumla penitentiary, members of the OG and the Bandidos were at war with each other. A Hells Angel at the Hall penitentiary’d recently cut one of Naser’s men dead with a ballpoint pen. Four quick ones to the throat. Chop chop. In other words, a third world war’d just broken out in the Stockholm jungle and the adjoining satellite boroughs. The cocksucking cops’ Project Nova was icing on the cake. Mrado was convinced they were manipulating the war. Taking advantage of the growing hate and violence. People were ready to snitch to fell the enemy. People were ready to takes risks in a war; they lowered their guard, compromised with security measures. The cops could nestle their way into the gangster teat. Suck out info. The result so far: over thirty convictions.