kept going straight, and one took off to the left. Fields farther up. The crops had been harvested.
The sky was gray.
He started walking.
Toward the fork in the road. Looked down the road that veered to the left. A couple of houses and parked cars. He walked closer. Saw a sign: WIRA BRUK-OLD HOMESTEAD MUSEUM. He walked across the parking lot. Nine cars total. Toyed with the thought of boosting one, then scrapped it. Walked down toward the houses.
A stream to his left. Picturesque. A little bridge. Leafy trees. Gravel road. Red kiosk. Seemed boarded up for the fall, but they’d forgotten the ice-cream cardboard cutout outside. Farther down, three larger houses. A gravel square between them. Signs on the houses. An old school. An old parish hall. An old county sheriff’s house. A middle-aged couple entered the school. He was seriously off. There were no vacation homes here. It was a fucking museum.
Out on the main road again.
He kept walking. For fifteen minutes. No houses in sight.
Fifteen more minutes.
Saw houses farther up between the trees.
Got closer.
The first seemed lived in. There was a Volvo V70 parked outside.
He went on to the next one. Woods all around.
Jorge wondered if it’d been the right move to come up here. Unknown territory. Away game. Simple fact about J-boy: He wasn’t exactly the type who’d been raised a Boy Scout, field biologist, or explorer. Limited exposure to a world without asphalt and McDonald’s.
The house was about three hundred yards farther up. Couldn’t be seen from the first house. No car parked outside. It was big. Two glassed-in porches. Faded red paint. White trim. Green paint around the windows. The bottom porch was hardly visible behind all the wild trees and bushes. Jorge walked up the path. The gravel crunched. The door to the house faced the yard, at the back of the house if you stood on the road. Perfect. Looked in through all the windows. No one home. Knocked on the door. No answer. Yelled “Hello.” No one came out. Walked back out on the road. No other people or houses in sight. Went back. Tried to locate an alarm system. Nada. Put his gloves on. Broke a window. Carefully reached his hand in. Didn’t want to cut himself. Unhooked the window latch. No problem. Opened the window. Pulled himself up. Jumped in.
Listened. No alarm. He yelled again. No answer. Que lindo.
After two days in the house, he felt right at home.
He made a room with a window facing the hedge his bedroom. Avoided the other windows. Cleaned all the grub out of the cupboards. Found pasta, rice, canned goods, beer, herring. Old condiments. No favorite foods, but it’d have to do.
During the day, he did push-ups and jumped rope on one foot. More training: sit-ups, back exercises, stretching. Wanted to stay in shape. Make up for what he’d missed during the time in the shelters.
Nervous. Ears perked. He listened for the sound of cars. Crunching on the gravel. Voices outside. He took an old beer can and put it on the handle of the front door-if someone came, it’d fall on the floor and make enough noise to wake him up.
It was peaceful. Tranquil. Quiet. Damn dull.
He was supposed to call Mrado in ten days.
He couldn’t sleep that night, his thoughts distracted. What would he do if Radovan refused to give up? How would he make cash? Maybe he’d have to be in touch with someone in the C business after all. Flip a few grams. Deal for dosh. Back to the old routine.
What’d happened to Sergio? Eddie? His sister? His mama? He should really give them a call. Show he cared.
He thought about Sangvagen, the street where he’d grown up. His first pair of soccer cleats. The grass field down by Frihetsvagen. The hangout room in Tureberg’s School. The basement of his house. His first joint.
Man, he wanted one.
Got up. Looked out the window. The sky was starting to glow. Fog rose off the ground. Sappy flick. Cue the music. Dig the paradox: him, Jorge, progeny of the asphalt jungle, sucking up the bumpkin paradise and enjoying it. It was so beautiful outside.
In that moment, he didn’t give a shit if anyone saw him.
14
JW was soon a real hot ticket. The rings spread on the water after the party at Lovhalla Manor. The talk about the rager went on for weeks: how crazy Nippe’d been, how funny Jet Set Carl’d looked when he’d run riot, the killer jokes Lollo’d made, how randy Nippe was all the time. The gossip exaggerated the drinking, the dancing, the scandals, and the rush, to JW’s advantage.
He made good money in the weeks that followed. Abdulkarim loved him. He painted their brilliant plans for the future, fantasized-they were going to own this town. JW didn’t know if he should take Abdul seriously or if he was kidding around. The Arab talked so damn much.
JW stopped driving the gypsy cab, let another guy take over. Checked with Abdulkarim first. It was cool with the Arab.
JW saw himself with new eyes: business baron, blow bringer, bitch banger-got three girls home in two weeks. A personal record. He felt like a mini Nippe.
During the days, he went berserk in the boutiques. Two new pairs of shoes to call his own: Gucci loafers with the gold buckle, and Helmut Lang boots for the winter. He bought a suit, Acne design with visible seams at the cuffs. It was hip, possibly too hipster. Maybe not the correct, strict style. He gorged himself on new shirts with double cuffs: Stenstroms, Hugo Boss, Pal Zileri. Bought new jeans, pants, socks, belts, tank tops, and cuff links. The best buy of all was a cashmere coat from Dior, for the winter. The price was twelve thousand kronor. Expensive, sure, but it costs to be on top. He hung it in front of his bed so it’d be the first thing he saw when he woke up in the morning. Coat for a king.
JW loved every minute. He didn’t save a cent.
As for the Ferrari, he kept repeating to himself: There’d been two cars like it in Sweden that year. It shouldn’t be impossible to find someone with a connection to them, someone who’d known Camilla or at least knew more than the police. Peter Holbeck, the owner of one of the cars, had hardly used his. Anyway, it didn’t seem likely that Camilla would’ve had anything to do with the guy; the dude was never in Sweden. That left the leasing company, Dolphin Finance, Ltd. The company’d filed for bankruptcy a year ago-that was obviously shady.
JW looked up info about the company with the National Registry of Incorporated Companies. It was bought as a shelf company, Grundstenen, Ltd., but had immediately changed its name to Leasing Finance, Ltd. Six months later, it changed its name to the Finance ER of Stockholm, Ltd. A year later, it changed its name again, this time to Dolphin Finance, Ltd. Three name changes in less than three years. The fish stink was unmistakable. The same person’d been on the board ever since the storage company’s buyout, a certain Lennart Nilsson, born March 14, 1954. JW looked the man up with the Civil Population Registry.
Lennart Nilsson was dead.
JW ordered a copy of the documents connected with the bankruptcy case.
Peculiar information: Lennart Nilsson was a known user from Nacka and had died of cirrhosis. According to the compulsory information the administrator of the bankrupt estate was obligated to supply in case of eventual falsifications, the man was probably a cover, a so-called front man.
JW’d reached a dead end. The Ferrari was leased by a company that’d gone under and whose only physical representative had passed away. How would he proceed now?
The only thing he could think of was to get in touch with the administrator of the bankrupt estate personally. He called, got a secretary on the line, and asked to speak with the lawyer. According to the secretary, there were tons of hurdles. Every time JW called, she said, “Can you call back? Unfortunately, he is in a meeting at the moment.” JW asked her to tell the lawyer to call him. He thought that should be enough. The lawyer jerk never
