Jens Lapidus - Easy Money

Homeward bound in the Benz. Mrado thought the agreement was pitch-perfect. The Bandidos would reduce their coat-check racketeering in the inner city. Would reduce their blow biz in the inner city. Would do whatever financial crime they wanted. Would increase the other protection-racket stuff. Would increase the marijuana trade.

Perfect. That served Rado. That served Nenad. But most of all, that served Mrado. The coat-check business was saved, which meant that Mrado’s seat was secured.

He called Ratko. They chatted for a minute or so.

He decided to call Nenad, too, his closest man among the colleagues. Told him what’d just happened. Nenad: clearly pleased.

“Nenad, maybe you and me should start talking about some business of our own one of these days. What do you think?”

The first time Mrado’d suggested anything that bridged on betrayal of Radovan. If Nenad was the wrong man, Mrado could count his days in computer code-one or zero.

The strategy: to import directly. Buy at the source, South America. In this case, no direct deal with a syndicate. They weren’t that big yet. But Abdulkarim’s connections plus Jorge’s brains might equal jackpot.

Import was the vital point. As large and low-risk as possible.

So far, they’d brought home smaller portions. Through mules, through the mail, in shampoo bottles, in toothpaste tubes, bags of candy. Expansion demanded larger quantities.

Jorge’s main job: to work home the product. To push the stuff wasn’t a problem; the bottleneck was working it home.

Jorge’d spent the past couple of weeks as follows: in the car outside Radovan’s; at Fahdi’s place, planning import; south of the city, networking.

He needed kale to hate Rado.

Needed Rado hate to keep making kale.

Life on the lam. Hate, plan, sleep-life was simple.

Everything at the mercy of Abdulkarim. A miracle that the Arab accepted Jorge’s hate project. He probably didn’t grasp the scope, didn’t know the Latino planned on completely breaking the Yugo boss. Jorge indirectly owed the Arab loyalty for taking him under his wing, giving him a roof over his head and medical attention after Mrado’s assault. Abdulkarim’d invested heavy in Jorge-boy. Really, it couldn’t be measured in money. Abdul never said anything. But Jorge knew: He expected returns on his investment.

Today the first serious import of his own would go down, been planned for months. The Brazilian courier. De miedo.

The rule was to use someone who wouldn’t attract attention. Jorge knew more than he ought to know about her-Silvia Pasqual de Pizzaro. The contact person from São Paulo’d told him. She was twenty-nine years old. From Campo Grande, near Paraguay, where unemployment was sky-high. Only finished elementary school. Had her first baby, a daughter, at eighteen. Since then, she’d been living with her kid and her mother. The second kid came at twenty, the third at twenty-two. All the babydaddies were long gone. Silvia’s mother worked as a seamstress but had respiratory problems.

He could figure it out easy: The little family was on the brink of total destitution. Silvia Pasqual would do anything for a couple of reais. Tragic? No. That’s life. You have to take risks if you want to get somewhere. Jorge knew.

Jorge gave the how-to orders. Two cabin bags were bought. Make: Samsonite-large, magnesium-light. The genius devil in the details: The retractable handle was made of aluminum-hollow. Drilled into with a 0.1-inch drill under the rubber handle at the top. Six hundred grams of blow fit in each bag’s handle. Total value on the street: at least three million. Easy money.

The final pour-in was pulverized mothballs. In the unlucky case of dogs, the sharp smell might distract their sniffing. The drill hole was welded shut. The rubber handles were put back. They could check the bags’ contents as thoroughly as they wanted. They could check Silvia all night, feel her up everywhere, X-ray her, make her sit on a toilet in a customs holding pen for three days. They’d find nada.

But that wasn’t enough. He nagged at himself: Do it right. Jorge’d heard about tons of smart freight methods that’d been blown ’cause customs got suspicious. If they thought something was shady, they wouldn’t let it go. Jorge’s solution lay in careful instructions to Silvia, conveyed through his contact in Brazil. She learned the spiel by heart: She was going to Sweden to visit relatives who lived outside Stockholm. Stay for a week. He gave her a number to give in case they asked: one of Jorge’s prepaid cell numbers. He gave her an address: a house that belonged to Fahdi’s godfather. She got over fifty bucks’ worth of clothes-couldn’t be obvious that she was an impoverished illiterate from the Brazilian campo. He had her learn simple English phrases. Maybe most important of all: She flew via London; the ticket wouldn’t show she’d flown from Rio.

Should be just right.

Saturday afternoon. A clear day. Finally.

Jorge leaned against the fence that surrounded the yellowish church at Odenplan. In front of him was the Hotel Oden. Jorge’d been standing there for two hours already. Waiting for Silvia Pasqual de Pizzaro.

She should’ve been there over an hour ago. Jorge: a little anxious, but everything was probably under control.

He called the airport. The plane was delayed by thirty minutes. Maybe the woman’d had trouble with the buses. With the passport controllers, the dogs, the airport police. Jorge hoped for suerte ’s smile.

Their two cars were parked farther down on Karlbergsvägen, within sight. One boosted by Petter. The other rented by Mehmed, using a fake driver’s license. Elegantish.

His co-dees, Petter and Mehmed-hustlers with skill. Made the blow go like never before. Jorge organized from the top. Petter and Mehmed kept the buzz alive with underlings and dealers, kept their contacts fresh, sold, spread rumors. Produced profit. Both were housing-project kids from the outer boroughs. Both pulled a line themselves now and then.

Petter: south of south side supporter. Thought he was abroad as soon as he entered the inner-city limits. Soccer fanatic. Party boy. Perfect sales channel to the Swedish working class.

Mehmed: Tunisian. Blatte bad boys’ distributor. Loved to coast in his Audi A4 along the cracked streets of Botkyrka. A hero on his turf: the asphalt jungle.

Now Mehmed was waiting in one of the cars. Was gonna meet Silvia at her hotel room as soon as she got there. Empty the Samsonites of blow. Go down to the car. Drive to Petter’s apartment. Give him the gear. Petter would weigh it, check the grade, repackage. Then bring the bags out to Jorge. The plan ought to be waterproof.

Jorge’s job was mostly to survey the transaction. Petter and Mehmed were good guys-but also typical guys who’d do anything for cash. Like shovel the snow on their own. Blow Abdukarim and Jorge off. No one trusted anyone. But J-boy was smarter than that, had gotten an extra involved, an IT guy who used to be a customer of Jorge’s in earlier days. The IT dude was just payrolled for the day. Was gonna put on a little show for the sake of security. The dude was sitting in his car farther up the street. Jorge commended himself: What a fuckin’ ill plan.

He waited. Reminded him of the wait outside Radovan’s house. But the difference was that here he knew something would happen.

Was thinking. What’d surfaced about Radovan? Above all, Jorge’s hate’d surfaced at full force. Stronger with every day. He breathed hate. Ate hate. Dreamed hate. To whip Rado with a baseball bat, across his kneecaps, mouth, forehead. Shoot Radovan in the gut with a shotgun. He tried to cool down. Think pragmatically instead. How could he nail Rado without risking his own livelihood?