Jens Lapidus - Never Fuck Up

“Okay, so what are you going to do now?”

Thomas was growing impatient. “Call him and tell him a package arrived for him that is too big for you to take care of and that he has to pick it up today, or else you’ll send it back.”

“What did you say?”

“Quit it. Either you do what I just told you to do, or else we’ll make life really fucking sour for you.” Thomas walked into the booth. Pulled binders out. Started flipping through them. He found Ballénius’s contract. Actually: there was a number listed that he didn’t recognize.

Hägerström watched the situation unfold. The P.O. box guy seemed bewildered.

Thomas looked at him. “What, you want something?”

The P.O. box guy didn’t respond.

Thomas stepped back out from booth. “Maybe you didn’t understand what I just told you.” He walked over to a P.O. box. Rummaged around in his pocket. Fished out the electrical skeleton key. Started working on the lock.

The guy looked terrified. “Shit, man, you can’t do that.”

“Call John Ballénius right now and tell him that there’s a huge package here for him,” Thomas said. “Big as a bike or something like that. Just call.”

The postbox guy shook his head. Still picked up the phone. Dialed the number. Sandwiched the receiver between his chin and shoulder.

Thomas could hear his own breathing.

After fifteen seconds.

“Hi, this is Lahko Karavesan at P.O. Box Center in Hallunda.”

Thomas tried to hear the voice on the other end of the guy’s phone. He couldn’t.

“We’ve got a package for you that’s way too big for us to keep here.”

Something was said on the other end of the line.

“It’s big like a bike or something, but I don’t know what it is. Unfortunately, if you don’t pick it up today we’re gonna have to send the package back.”

Silence.

Thomas looked at the P.O. box guy. The guy looked at Hägerström. Hägerström looked at Thomas.

The guy hung up the phone. “He’s on his way, soon.”

Damn, that was some luck.

The buzzer in the office went off. Four customers’d passed through the P.O. Box Center while they’d been waiting. Said hi discreetly to the poor guy who worked there, exchanged a few words, emptied their boxes. Continued running their anonymous companies, their front-man operations, their porn stashes hidden from their wives.

The P.O. box guy signaled to Thomas and Hägerström. A man walked in. The same sad, gray face. Same thin hair. Same thin, rickety body. Ballénius.

The guy didn’t have time to react. Hägerström was positioned by the door and stepped up behind him. Thomas, in front, leaned in close. Ballénius didn’t even seem surprised; he looked despondent.

Hägerström cuffed him.

Ballénius didn’t resist. Didn’t say anything. Just stared at Thomas with tired eyes. They led him out. The P.O. box guy exhaled, as though he’d been holding his breath for the entire time that Thomas and Hägerström’d been in there.

Hägerström climbed into the front seat. Thomas in the back, next to John Ballénius. It was snowing so much outside that Thomas couldn’t even see the Hallunda Mall sign anymore. Warm air was pouring out of the car’s air vents.

Ballénius was sitting with his hands in his lap; the handcuffs weren’t pulled too tightly. Waiting for them to drive him to the interrogation.

Hägerström turned around. “We’re going to conduct the interrogation right here, just so you know.”

“Why?” Ballénius asked. The guy’d been around the block—knew: regulation interrogations were never conducted in a car.

“Because we don’t have time to mess around, John,” Thomas responded.

Ballénius groaned. His exhalation created a cloud of steam—it still wasn’t all that warm in the car.

“You know the drill. You’re an old hand at this, John. We can goof around and play nice. Laugh at your jokes to pretend to be pleasant. Coddle you, cajole you into talking.”

Theatrical pause.

“Or else we can just be straight with you. This is not an ordinary investigation. You know that, too. This is the fucking Palme murder.”

Ballénius nodded.

“You’ve laid low. You know something and you know that someone wants to know what you know. Me and Hägerström here, we also want to know. But there are others, too. Understood?”

Ballénius kept nodding.

“I understand that you don’t want to talk. You might get in trouble. But let me put it this way: you’ve probably read in the papers that they’ve arrested a man for the murder of Rantzell. Do you know who it is? The media isn’t printing his name. He’s Marie Brogren’s son.”

Thomas tried to see if Ballénius reacted to the news. The guy lowered his gaze. Maybe, maybe a reaction.

Thomas briefly went over the suspicions against Niklas Brogren. Hägerström sat with his gaze fixed on Ballénius. Five minutes passed.

“You know what this means. Niklas Brogren is probably going to be convicted of the murder of Claes. But he isn’t the one who did it, is he? Niklas Brogren is innocent. And the ones who are really behind all this, and who were behind Palme, will go free. But you can change that, John. This is your chance. The chance of a lifetime. And that’s because Hägerström and I are not part of an official investigation. We’re doing this privately, on the side. So everything you tell us will stay between us, it’ll never go public. Never.”

Ballénius looked down again. Near silence in the car. It was warm now. Too warm. Thomas was still sitting with his jacket on. Saw his own reflection in the window across from him. He felt tired. This had to end now.

Hägerström broke the silence.

“John, we’re as deep in the shit as you are. Ask any cop. Andrén’s been transferred because of his investigation and I’ve been cut off. We’re not desirable anymore, we’re outside the system. And we’ve gone rogue on this. If that comes out, we’re done as cops. Do you understand what I’m saying? If you want, you can call one of your police contacts and ask.”

“That’s not necessary,” Ballénius said. “I’ve already heard about you.” A vein was pulsing in Ballénius’s neck. “I’ll talk, on two conditions.”

“What?”

“That you release me right afterward and that you don’t tell anyone how you got ahold of me or what you know about me.”

Thomas stared at Hägerström. Then he said, “That’s fine, granted you give us useful information.”

“That’s not enough. If it is as you say, you really don’t have any right to sit here and interrogate me. I want something to hold over you as security. I want to take a picture of us together on my cell phone. If things get bad, I’ll give it to some appropriate inspector who can draw his own conclusions about you.”

Dangerous horse trading. They’d be taking a huge chance. A massive risk. Thomas could feel Hägerström glancing at him again. The decision was his. He was the one most personally affected by this whole thing. He was burning the most. Was pushing the hardest.

Thomas said, “Okay, we’ll buy that. You talk, you take a picture, then you can go.”

Hägerström turned off the heat. The silence sounded like a scream in the car.

The old guy opened his mouth as if to say something. Then he closed it again.

Thomas stared.

Ballénius leaned back. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I know.”

Thomas could feel himself tense up.

“Claes and I weren’t close for long. We spent a lot of time together in the eighties and nineties. Especially in the middle and end of the eighties—you know, there was quite the time being had at Oxen, the bar, and then there were all the companies we were on the boards of. Between us, we made some hefty dough. But neither me nor Classe have ever been any good at holding on to money. Ask my daughter, you know about her, I gather. Claes’s money mostly went to booze and you can guess where mine went. I’ve always loved horses.”