“It happens, it happens,” Mrado said, and laughed. “Even I’ve gotta stay in shape, right?” Mrado, surprised. Didn’t know a guy like Haakonsen knew about the Kvarnen incident.
“And how is the Godfather himself?” Haakonsen went on.
“Just dandy. Radovan is alive and well. Business is booming. And you?”
“Better than ever. The Bandidos are in Stockholm to stay. You’ll have to watch out.”
A joke or a warning?
“Watch out for what? Greasy-fingered kids with biker dreams?”
“No, I’m not talking about the HA.”
Mrado and Haakonsen laughed loudly. James grinned.
The tension lifted. They talked about Mrado’s Benz, about the weather, about the latest news in their world, that a man from the Naser gang’d been offed with a ballpoint pen. According to Haakonsen, the job’d been professionally done: “Hitting the right spot with a pen isn’t so hard, but the trick is, you gotta twist it around so you kill with the first jab.”
Ten minutes in, Mrado interrupted the conversation to cut to the chase. “I think you know why I wanted to see you.” He looked Haakonsen in the eye.
“I can only suspect. A little bird whispered in my ear that you’ve already talked to Magnus Linden and Naser.”
“So you know what I’m after?”
“My qualified guess is that you want us to end the war with the HA. You want the other gangs to cool it?”
“That’s about right. But let me explain.”
“In a bit. First, I have to make a couple of things clear. We are men of honor. I am sure that you Serbs have your rules. We have ours, in any case. The Bandidos are a family. If you hurt one of us, you hurt us all. Like an animal-if you cut one paw, the whole body feels the pain. Two months ago, Jonny ‘Bonanza’ Carlgren was shot dead in Sodertalje, in the middle of the square. Bonanza’d been at the liquor store with his wife and two of his brothers. Four shots to the stomach, but the first one, it was in his back. In front of his woman. He bled to death in thirty minutes. You get me. They put the first shot in his back. He didn’t even have time to turn around.”
“With all due respect, I know all that.”
“Just let me finish.”
Mrado backed up. Wanted to keep the mood good. Nodded.
“Bonanza was my brother. Do you understand. My Bandidos brother. We don’t forget. Nothing can get us to stop what has to be done. The Hells Angels are gonna pay. It’s gonna cost ’em. A fucking fortune. We popped the guy who planned Bonanza a month ago. Now we’re gonna get the guy who pulled the trigger.”
They were quiet for ten seconds, their eyes glued on each other.
“You’ve got every right to avenge a fallen brother. But, as you said, you’ve already done that. If I’m not mistaken, you guys shot Micke Lindgren. One all. What matters is that you’re only tripping yourselves up if you keep going. The situation’s just that simple, even if I sympathize. It’s not just about the Bandidos and the HA. Jonas, we’ve been in this town much longer than you guys. You’re big now, and I like your style, definitely, but you were pedaling a BMX and chewing gum when I first started breaking human bones. You’d robbed a couple of bodegas when I’d made my first million on blow. I know the opportunities this city has to offer. There’s room for all of us. But we have to act right. Why are we in a fucking container right now? In the middle of winter? You know the answer. You and me, we’re both targeted by that damn Nova Project. The cop offensive. They’re on it. If you just plan your next kick to the HA’s balls instead of planning your defense against the next Nova hit, you’ll be tripping BMC. We’re splitting ourselves into pieces in these wars while they pick us up, one by one. With my plan, we break these cop faggots.”
Mrado kept convincing. Haakonsen was opposed to everything that had to do with peace with the HA, but he listened to the rest. Nodded at times. Delivered his own monologues. Got fired up. James Khalil was invisible, sat completely silent. Mrado and Haakonsen discussed market shares for an hour.
The Bandidos president bought the basic concept.
Finally, they reached a preliminary agreement.
Mrado downed his glass. Haakonsen stood up. James got up. Opened the hatch. Mrado stepped out first. Outside, the snow kept coming down.
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.
34
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 Sao 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
