Easy Money

23

JW with morning-after angst. He felt like a baked potato with a lead hat on his head. He’d woken up at nine-thirty. Crawled home from Sophie’s place. Sat on the floor beside the bed and felt nauseous for twenty minutes. Then drank four cups of water in a desperate attempt to curb the hangover. After the water, he puked in the toilet. Felt considerably better. Fell asleep.

Now he was awake again, after only two hours of sleep. Had gotten what he deserved. Couldn’t fall back asleep. He was racked with angst. Things’d gotten weird with Sophie. Felt like the definition of humiliation. On the other hand, he’d done his biggest C delivery ever. So, the night still had to be counted as somewhat of a success.

Promised himself to stick with coke in the future. No booze.

Promised himself to set things right with S.

He stayed in bed even though he couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t get up.

Promised himself for the six thousandth time: Only coke in the future.

JW woke up again. Remembered why he wasn’t allowed to sleep in. There were two projects he had to deal with today. First, he had to make sure the Jan Bruneus story checked out. Then he had to find that Jorge dude. He’d slacked off a little too much on that front. Abdulkarim’s expansion plans demanded action.

He skipped a morning lecture at the university. Returned to the Sveaplan high school instead. Went up to the reception desk. The receptionist recognized him and greeted him cheerfully. She was sporting the same pleated skirt as the first time he’d seen her.

JW said, “I have a question for you, ma’am. It may be somewhat unusual.”

The woman smiled. JW’d done a good job buttering her up with his manners last time.

“I’d like to see the transcripts for someone who studied here four years ago, Camilla Westlund.”

The woman kept smiling but made one of her faces: squeezed her eyes shut, twisted her neck, squinted at JW from the side. Meaning: Aren’t you going a little too far now?

“Sorry, we don’t release that kind of paperwork.”

JW’d spoken with the city agency in charge of academic transcripts. Had expected a reluctant response from Komvux. He was prepared. Had read up, sharpened his arguments. Felt confident. Brought out the heavy artillery right away. No point in mollycoddling the old hag.

“The transcripts are public documents that are to be released unless they are deemed classified for some reason. If you can’t prove that they are classified and provide me with the reason for that, they should be considered public and immediately be made available to me. If you refuse to release them, you will be committing a breach of duty, which may be punishable.”

The woman made another face but kept that same smile on her lips. Her eyes were staring down to the left. Insecurity.

JW continued as though he were reciting from memory. “Other documents that you draw up here at Komvux are also public and most probably unrestricted. According to the Public Records Act, you have no right to withhold the documents. So, if I may trouble you to please produce Camilla Westlund’s grades for all the classes she took here. Thank you.”

The woman turned on her heel. Went into an adjoining room. JW heard her speak to someone.

Michael Moore-you can hit the showers.

The receptionist returned.

New expression: The smile on her lips was even phonier than before. Her eyes were glittering in a servile grimace.

“I have to go get them in the archives. Would you mind waiting?” She didn’t say a word about being wrong.

It didn’t matter. The score was still JW: 1, Grimace lady: 0.

The receptionist disappeared.

She was gone for twenty minutes.

JW got nervous. Sent texts, checked his calendar on his cell. His thoughts flitted from cocaine-selling strategies to Abdulkarim’s platitudes, Camilla’s Ferrari trips, and the Chilean he still had to track down. Everything hit him at once. No order to the chaos.

The woman returned. She was holding a plastic folder in her hand. She handed it to him.

JW scanned the documents: transcripts. Stockholm’s City Continuing Education Program. Sveaplan Gymnasium. Grades for Camilla Westlund. The grades were filled in by hand.

Language Arts: Levels 1 and 2: A

English: Levels 1 and 2: A

Math: Level 1: C

History: Levels 1 and 2: F

Social Studies: Level 1: A

French: Levels 1 and 2: C

JW remained standing by the reception desk. His gaze was glued to the grades. Something was wrong. He tried to get a grip on what. Camilla’d had Jan Bruneus in language arts, English, and social studies. She’d aced them all, just like he’d said she had. She’d only got a C in two other subjects, and failed one. Question was: How come she’d aced Jan’s courses?

JW had to know.

He called for the receptionist again. Asked her to get other documents on Camilla.

Less of a wait this time. She knew where to look.

The receptionist came back after five minutes with a similar plastic folder in her hands-other documents.

They addressed Camilla Westlund’s attendance record. The same subjects as were listed on the transcript. She had less than a 60 percent rate of attendance. His head was spinning. The Komvux reception area was contorting around him, threatening to swallow him up. He felt hot. Camilla’s attendance rate for language arts, English, and social studies-under 30 percent. Something was really fuckin’ wrong. No one could ace anything with that kind of attendance. Why had Jan Bruneus lied?

He turned to the receptionist and said, “Do you know where Jan Bruneus usually spends the breaks between classes?” JW made an effort to smile.

“He’s probably in the teachers’ lounge,” she said, and pointed.

JW turned. Booked it down the corridor.

The door to the teachers’ lounge was open. He didn’t bother to knock. Just walked right in.

Looked around. Seven people were sitting around a large table of pale wood. Eating Danishes and drinking coffee.

None of them was Jan Bruneus.

JW straightened up. “Hi, pardon me for intruding. I was wondering if you know where Jan Bruneus might be?”

One of the people around the table said, “He’s left for the day.”

JW let it drop. Walked out.

His cell vibrated on the way home from Komvux. At first, JW was going to ignore it-he had enough to think about. Then he realized it might be Abdul. He fished the phone out of his pocket. Too late.

The missed call was from Jose (cell).

Jose was one of the guys whose name JW’d gotten from Abdulkarim in the search for Jorge. The guy was a bartender at a place in the Sollentuna area, Mingel Room Bar. JW’d met him two days earlier and taken him to dinner at Primo Ciao Ciao-a moneymaking pizza joint. JW’d offered him two grand in exchange for info on Jorge. Jose was a perfect hit. Knew who Jorge was, worshiped him like a hero. He’d hung with the same crowd as the Chilean in the early ’00s. JW’d told him the truth, more or less: He didn’t wish Jorge any harm, wanted to offer the fugitive opportunities, wanted to help Jorge get back on his feet in his new and wonderful life on the outside. Like Jesus, Jr. But Jose hadn’t known anything about Mr. AWOL at the time.

JW waited fifteen minutes to call him back. Walked along Valhallavagen and thought through what he wanted to know and what he had the energy to do right now. Thoughts of Jan Bruneus got in the way. He had to concentrate. The Camilla thing couldn’t suck all the energy out of his coke gig right now.

JW said to himself, Focus. Drop the sis angst. It’s more exciting to play detective regarding a Chilean on the run than regarding Camilla. The Jorge dude on the run-JW’s chance to be part of something big.

He called Jose.

As soon as the guy picked up, JW knew Jose had superimportant act-fast-as-fuck kind of info. Someone who looked like Jorge’d been spotted in Sollentuna last night. The blatte ’d partied hard together with two other Sollentuna gangsters: Vadim and Ashur. Infamous in northwest Stockholm. The Jorge dude’d left the bar at closing, 3:00 a.m. Jose’d gone out to the entrance, where the stragglers were still hanging. They were juiced up. Blabbered on about the close call they’d had with the 5–0. Jose asked Vadim if it really was Jorge he’d seen. The hero’d curled his hair, looked darker, more facial hair. Vadim just grinned. He didn’t reveal anything directly, but what he did say was enough: “He a new bad boy, yo. Gonna spend the night at my crib ’cause the Five-Oh be chasin’ him all the time. Tonight, too.” Jose read him.

JW asked two questions before hanging up: “Where does Vadim live? What time is it?”

Jose knew the address: Malmvagen 32. Near the Sollentuna Mall. It was 1:00 p.m.

JW stopped short. Tried to hail a cab.

He waited. Not a lot of cabs around at this time.

Thought about the Chilean he had to get hold of. What would he say to him?

Six minutes passed. Where were all the cabs?

Restlessness overtook him once again. Nothing worse than waiting for a taxi.

He waved at a cab that looked empty.

It drove past him.

Hailed another one.

It stopped.

JW got in. The driver said something in unintelligible Swedish.

JW said, “Take me to Malmvagen thirty-two, please.”

They drove toward Nortull.

Out on the E4 expressway. Felt like they were crawling.

JW evaluated: There were worse things in the world than waiting for a cab-such as sitting in a cab and waiting for the traffic to move.

Soon he’d have his talk with the Chilean.