calm. The neighbors were chill. Time stood still.
Sergio hung up. His face was expressionless.
“He said Jorge disappeared from his place the same day I was called in for questioning. Said he didn’t know where he was going. That he was gonna sleep in parks or shelters and then get dough.”
“How can I be sure you’re not lying?”
Sergio shrugged. The attitude was back.
“If you want insurance, call a fuckin’ corporate boojie, fatso.”
Mrado grabbed his ring finger.
Snapped it.
“Don’t call me that. Give me something I can trust or I’ll break your whole hand.”
Sergio screamed. Wailed. Cried.
After a couple of minutes, he calmed down. Seemed apathetic. Spoke quietly, in starts. “Jorge gave Eddie a piece of paper. Coded. Jorge and me came up with the system. A couple of months ago. Eddie read it to me. You can check it with him. If you don’t believe me. Just don’t hurt me anymore. Please.”
Mrado nodded. Sergio showed the letters he’d written down on the back of the envelope: Pq vgpiq fqpfg kt. Bxgtoq gp nc ecnng. Sxg Fkqu og caxfg. Incomprehensible letter combinations. Some kind of code. Shouldn’t be impossible to crack, Sergio explained. It was simple. “Every letter is really the one two steps further up in the alphabet. It says: No tengo donde ir. Duermo en la calle. Que Dios me ayude. ” Mrado asked him to translate. Sergio glanced at Ratko.
Mrado said: “He doesn’t understand a word.”
The Latino translated, “I have nowhere to go. Sleep on the street. God help me.”
Mrado and Ratko were silent on the ride home. Mrado’d made a big-enough tear in the tape that Sergio’d be able to free himself in a couple of minutes.
Mrado said, “You thought that was unnecessary?”
Ratko’s answer was filled with irritation, “Is there rice in China?”
“Don’t worry. He won’t say anything. If he does, he’ll have to turn himself in.”
“Still, risky behavior. The neighbors might’ve heard.”
“They’re used to shit goin’ down around there.”
“Not like that. The blatte screamed worse than a Bosnian whore.”
“Ratko, can you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Never second-guess me again.”
Mrado kept driving. Dropped Ratko off in Solna. Back with his girl. Mrado thought, Congrats, you’ve got a life.
New useful information: The Latino fugitive’d left. Planned to sleep outside or at a homeless shelter. But it was colder now. Jorge’d have to be stupid to sleep on the street this time of year. Odds were he stayed at shelters.
Mrado called information. Got the telephone number and address of three homeless shelters in Stockholm. Stadmissionen had two locations: the Night Owl and the Evening Cat. The third: KarismaCare near Fridhemsplan.
He drove to KarismaCare.
Rang the doorbell. Was buzzed in. A small waiting area. A large bulletin board across from the reception desk was covered with handouts published for Situation Stockholm, a newspaper whose proceeds went to the homeless: opportunities to sell newspapers. Information on community college courses: discounts for the homeless. Information packets about welfare. Pictures from soup kitchens. Ads for yoga classes in the city.
A thin, dark-haired woman was sitting behind the counter. She was dressed in a navy blouse and a cardigan.
“How can I help you?”
“I was wondering if you know if anyone named Jorge Salinas Barrio has slept here in the past four weeks,” Mrado said in a matter-of-fact voice.
“Unfortunately, I can’t answer that. We have a privacy policy.”
Mrado couldn’t even get pissed. The woman seemed too nice.
There was only one thing to do. He walked back to the car. Prepared to sleep. Folded down the backseat as far as it would go. He wanted to get the opportunity to talk to all the homeless guys, even the earliest birds, tomorrow morning when they left the shelter.
He slept better than at home. Dreamed he was walking on a beach and was denied entrance to a shelter that was built inside a set of monkey bars at the edge of a forest. Tried to throw sand up at the people in the monkey bars. They laughed. Bizarre.
He woke up. It was 6:00 a.m. He bought coffee and a pastry at a 7-Eleven. Stayed awake from then on. Listened to the radio. The seven o’clock news: anti-U.S. demonstrations in the Middle East. So? Guaranteed they got less beat up by the Americans in Iraq than by their own leaders. Europe didn’t get it, as usual. But the Serbs knew. Despite that, all Yankee critique was good. The swine’d bombed the shit out of Yugoslavia.
No movement on the street. Mrado was about to fall asleep again.
Ten minutes past seven: The first homeless guy stepped out. Mrado opened the car door and called out to him. The guy, wearing several layers of jackets and old snow boots, his face covered with gray stubble, seemed uneasy at first. Mrado sugared his tone. Showed the guy pictures of Jorge. Explained that he’d probably changed hair color or something else about his appearance. Explained that the Latino’d stayed at the shelter at some point over the past four weeks. Explained that he’d be served grilled cheese if he said something good. The homeless guy knew nil. Seemed to try hard, especially when he heard about the cheddar.
Mrado waited. After ten minutes, two other homeless guys came out. He pulled the same move on them as on the first one. They didn’t recognize J-boy.
He continued. Counted off twelve people. It was now eight thirty. KarismaCare closed in half an hour. No one knew shit, and the worst was that they didn’t seem to be lying.
Finally, a middle-aged man stepped out. Shitty teeth. Otherwise, relatively well-kempt appearance. Coat, black pants, gloves. Mrado called out to him. Same routine: explained, exhibited, enticed. Offered one grand. He could see the man was thinking. He knew something.
“I recognize that thug.”
Mrado pulled out two five-hundred-kronor bills. Rubbed them together.
The man continued, glanced at the bills. “I’ve seen that clown at least three times up at KarismaCare. You know, I noticed him; he was always on the floor doing sit-ups. Then he’d shower and smear himself with lotion. Self-tanner. What a damn hustler.”
“So he was tanner than in the picture?”
“You know, blacks wanna be white, like that player Mikey Jackson. Whites, like, wanna be brown. That hustler in your picture, he was also kinda coffee-colored, so it was strange. By the way, his hair is curlier in real life. A beard, too. I tried to talk to the guy once. Not much of a conversation. But he knew about other shelters in the city, so maybe you’ll find him there.”
“How do you know?”
“How do I know? He used to whine so damn much. Claimed the standard was better at other places, like the Night Owl. What an ass. You can’t complain when you get a bed, breakfast, and dinner for two hundred. There’re a lotta whiners out there, ya know. Don’t know what gratitude is.”
Mrado thanked the old-timer. Felt genuinely happy. Gave him the two bills. Told him to spread the word: Anyone who knows anything about the nappy, dark thug can report to Mrado and cash in.
22
The first thing Jorge wanted to do was eat.
McDonald’s in the Sollentuna Mall: Big Mac, cheeseburgers, extra fries, and ketchup poured into the small
