Never Fuck Up: A Novel

by Jens Lapidus

  Slowly but surely, Fuentes took over the fight. Heavy punches, low kicks, and rapid kicks to the head. The Romanian fought like a girl. Retreated ringside at every advance. Waved his arms in front of his face without even touching the Dutch man on the nose.

  It was stupid. Felt like an American WWE fight. Fake.

  The rounds passed by one by one. The dudes in the ring grew more tired.

  Mahmud almost laughed. Even if it was a rigged fight, Stefanovic was gonna get rich—and his boss, R., would probably get even richer.

  The gong sounded. The fight was over. The Romanian was barely standing. The judge grabbed hold of their gloves.

  Raised Ernesto Fuentes’s arm.

  For the first time, Stefanovic turned to Mahmud. A smile barely flickered across his lips—but his eyes glowed like embers.

  “Okay, soon we’ll talk business. The next fight is going to be huge. I promise, they’re giants, he-men. It’s what everyone’s here to see. The audience is going to be in ecstasy. Deafening support for the Swedish guy. That’s when we’ll talk. When everyone’s attention is directed at the ring and no one can hear us. You follow?”

  Mahmud followed. Soon, he’d get his chance. If only the Gürhan fag knew. Mahmud was about to cut a deal with the Yugos.

  A half hour later: it was time again. Mahmud was in his seat, waiting. During the intermission, he’d walked around. Said hi to people he knew, buzzed with the guys from the gym. People were happy to see him out. “Welcome back, Twiggy. Now it’s time to get cracking and bulk up again.” They were right—the slammer was no place to work out. It should be perfect: lots of time, no booze, no unhealthy food. But you couldn’t sneak any juice in there, you couldn’t even buy dietary supplements in the prison commissary. Plus: the gym at Asptuna sucked. But the biggest difference was that it just wasn’t the same thing on the inside. The pen sucked you dry. Mahmud’d lost forty-four pounds.

  The Yugos were the right move for him. He wanted up—was going up. Six months in the pen couldn’t stop him. Not a chance he’d let himself get benched. And anyone who wanted up knew one thing: sooner or later you have to deal with R., so you might as well do it on sweet terms. Play on the same team as the Yugo boss. Mahmud: the Arab they couldn’t gyp, the man who went his own way. This was soooo right. He just wondered what it was they wanted him to do.

  Radovan came walking down a set of stairs. Trailed by a posse. Mahmud recognized a few of them: Stefanovic, of course. Goran: known as the city’s booze and smokes smuggling king. The Ratko dude. A couple other beefy guys he recognized from the gym. A trail of skanks.

  Stefanovic sat down next to Mahmud again.

  Jon Fagert stepped into the ring. Looked out over the sea of people. Silence settled.

  “Honored guests. Today is a big day. One of the two men who are soon going to go head to head in the ring will advance. Not just to anything. Not to yet another championship fight in their individual genre. No, on to something much bigger. To the ultimate championship for the sport of sports. What I’m taking about, of course, is the K-1 championship in the Tokyo Dome in December, where more than one hundred thousand people will be in the audience. First prize is over five hundred thousand dollars. One man will advance tonight. One man is strong enough. One man has the best fighting spirit. Soon, we’ll know which one.”

  Smoke billowed out beside two entrances to the ring.

  One silhouette appeared at each end.

  The music played “Also Sprach Zarathustra” from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

  Fagert raised the volume: “Ladies and gentleman, I have the honor of introducing two giants. From Belarus, straight from Minsk’s Chinuks Gym, we have the former Spetsnaz soldier with more than twenty K-1 championships to his name. The man with the iron fists, the beast, the death machine, the legend: Vitali Akhramenko.”

  The audience roared.

  One of the silhouettes moved forward. Took a step out from the smoky fog. The spotlights followed his heavy steps. The feeling: like a god who made an entrance in the valley of death.

  He was the biggest human being Mahmud’d ever seen, and Mahmud worked out at Fitness Center. Over seven feet tall. Defined muscles like on a comic-book figure. Chest wide as a sumo wrestler. Biceps broader than Mahmud’s thighs.

  Jon Fagert continued, making himself heard over the music: “And in the other corner we have a Swedish super fighter, straight from HBS Haninge Fighting School with over ten knockouts to his name. The powerhouse, the tank, the fighting god, our very own Jörgen Ståhl.”

  The atmosphere felt like a heavy-metal concert. The music pounded. The spotlights played. Jon Fagert’s eyes flashed. The little punks in the bleachers were in ecstasy.

  Jörgen Ståhl advanced slowly. Allowed the cheering to build gradually. Dressed in a cape with the HBS logo on the back. Black tribal tattoos covered almost his entire upper body. On one forearm in black inked letters: Ståhl Is King. Mahmud thought about Gürhan’s tattoo.

  Stefanovic opened his mouth, kept his eyes on the ring.

  “People are crazed. A couple punches and some blood and those kids up in the bleachers think it’s a world war. They know nothing. Did you bet, by the way?”

  “Didn’t bet last time, didn’t bet this time. But it seems like you cashed in.”

  “That’s right. This time, I’ve put in one hundred large. On the Belarusian. He’s an animal, I swear. This could be epic. What do you think?”

  Mahmud thought, Is Stefanovic trying to make me insecure? He’s ending every sentence with a stupid question.

  “I don’t really think nothing about it. You seem to know what you’re doing.”

  “Listen, the Belarusian is a three-hundred-pound old man, but he’s got the technique of a two-hundred-pound kid. And speed isn’t the only thing deciding this—timing is even more important. You’ll see. He’s going to let all hell break loose on that Swede. Course, we’ve got a hunch about it, too.”

  Mahmud wondered when Stefanovic was gonna get to the point.

  The fight began up in the ring. Akhramenko tried to land a left uppercut on Ståhl. The Swede blocked good. This was like heavyweight boxing but with low kicks to the legs.

  “Mahmud, we trust you. Do you know what that means?”

  Yet another question. Might be the beginning of the real talk they were supposed to have.

  “You can trust me. Even if I hung out with Mrado, I know he made some trouble for you guys. And even if I’m not a Serb. You use Arabs. Our people don’t have anything against each other here.”

  “That’s right. Maybe you already know one of them, Abdulkarim. He’s out of the game right now, but you can’t find a better man. Are you like him?”

  “Like I said, you can trust me.”

  “That’s not enough. We need men who are one hundred and fifty percent loyal. It happens that we bet on the wrong fighters, so to speak.”

  Mahmud knew what he was talking about—everyone knew. Lately there’d been a lot of shit going down in Stockholm’s underworld. That kind of thing happened: someone thought they’d be the new king of the hill, someone wanted to challenge the boys at the top, someone’s honor got stepped on. There were plenty of examples. The war between the Albanians and the Original Gangsters, the shoot-out in the Västberga cold-storage facility between different factions within the Yugo mafia, the executions in Vällingby last month.

  Up in the ring, Ståhl was landing a series of kicks to Akhramenko’s calves and quick alternating punches to his head. Maybe the Sven was gonna take it home after all.

  Stefanovic continued, “You could be our man. To see if you make the cut, I’d like to ask you for a little favor. Listen carefully.”

  Mahmud didn’t turn around. Continued to eye the fight. The first round ended. The Swede was bleeding near the eyebrow.

  “Have you heard about the hit against Arlanda Airport? It was going smooth but then it went to hell. We’d planned it just as well as we always do. I think you know what I mean. Had
the guards in our pockets. Knew the routines, the surveillance cameras, when the delivery of bills would arrive, the emergency exits, the escape routes, the exchangeable cars, caltrops, everything. There were four guys on the team, two of ours and two from your side of town, North Botkyrka. Three went into the grounds at Arlanda, into the storage area where the gear was stashed. One stayed outside. Everything went according to plan. When they’d pushed the bags out on the pallet to the getaway car, they were met by the guy who’d waited outside, dude number four. With gun in hand. Pointed at them. You follow?”

  “You got done.”

  “We got done right up the ass. Hard. There were bills for more than forty-five million. And that dude, he took it all. Had the other three dump the crap in the car. Then he split.”

  “You’re kidding? Who’s the guy?”

  It took a while for Stefanovic to answer. Ståhl and Akhramenko were dancing around each other slowly. The Belarusian looked tired. Ståhl bounced away as though he knew how Akhramenko was gonna hit. Blocked. Ducked. In the zone, working it. Ståhl almost got a knee in. The ref broke it up. Sent them back to their positions.

  “The guy’s name is Wisam Jibril. Lebanese. Heavy on CIT gigs. You know, cash in transit. Remember him? Something of a guru in your crowd, I think. He’s been missing since the Arlanda hit. Pronounced dead in the tsunami catastrophe a few years ago, just like so many others made sure to be. With forty-five of Radovan’s millions.”

  Suddenly it was obvious why they’d chosen him. Wisam Jibril: one of Mahmud’s gods growing up. Three years older. Went to the same school. From the same hood. Same gang. And Mahmud’s dad’d known Wisam’s mom, too. It was as if they were asking him to rat out family. Fuck.

  Still, he heard himself say, “What makes you think I can find him?”

  “We think he’s back in Sweden. People’ve seen him around town. But he knows we’re not happy. No one seems to know where he lives. He’s careful. Never goes out alone. Hasn’t even been in touch with his family, at least not as far as we know.”

  Stefanovic let the words hang in the air for a second. Then he hissed, “Find him.”

  Up in the ring, the giants were going at it. Ståhl was alternating between feeding uppercuts and jabs. The Belarusian guard was gradually being lowered. His head hung, he seemed unfocused. After two more minutes: bam. The Swede landed a brutal power punch. The Belarusian bounced against the ropes. Ståhl went in close. Grabbed Akhramenko’s neck. Pressed the giant down. Kneed him with full force. The sound of something cracking in Akhramenko’s jaw. The mouth guard went flying. A brief second: silence in the arena. Then he sank down to the mat.

  Mahmud’s thoughts were in mad tumult. First and foremost: the offer from the Yugos was in many ways an easy gig. To find a dude like Wisam couldn’t be impossible, if he was in Stockholm. At the same time: the guy was a family friend. The guy was from his hood, an Arab. What did that say about Mahmud’s honor? At the same time: he needed this more than ever. With the debt to Gürhan. And his own honor to win back.

  Stefanovic got up. The man’d just lost a hundred G’s. Maybe there were still some clean sports left—the Yugos didn’t seem to control everything in this city, after all. Mahmud eyed his face. Completely expressionless.

  Stefanovic turned to him.

  “Call me when you’re done thinking. By Monday.”

  Then he left.

  8

  Niklas’d been in the shower for forty minutes. Mom was at work so it didn’t matter: he could occupy the bathroom for as long as he liked.

  How long was she going to be staying with him? Okay, of course a dead person in the basement was unpleasant. But it was good, too. Maybe it had made her think, change.

  Unfortunately, Niklas’d also been dragged into it. Later today he was going in for questioning by the police. Questions were spinning around in the steam under the showerhead. He wondered what they thought they were going to get out of him. How should he deal with questions that got too personal? It was strange—how did they even know that he’d been living with his mom? Maybe some neighbor’d ratted him out, or else it was Mom who’d let it slip.

  Damn—this meant trouble. He’d actually thought he’d be spared. It had to be one of Mom’s neighbors. Scared, shocked, nervous. Spit out stuff that really should have nothing to do with it. Probably told the cops that a young man’d been living with her, maybe her son. He just couldn’t think of who’d even seen him in the building.

  The shower was crappy. Rust-brown dirt between the tiles. White residue on the showerhead that looked like old toothpaste. The water barely drained. Didn’t seem like the off-the-books broker asshole had the drain cleaned out too often. A thought in Niklas’s head: Civilized man couldn’t survive long without holes. Holes were the basis of cleanliness. A busted shower drain, and life got difficult. Too much toilet paper in the toilet or hair in the sink—a quick way for a bathroom to quit working. And the kitchen—things ran out through small holes in the drain, disappeared forever from the world of the cushy and comfy. Without them having to think about where it all went. No one cared what really happened with everything that didn’t belong in an ordered household: hair, toothpaste spit, food scraps, old milk, excrement. Holes were the most important ingredient in the recipe for comfort. They maintained Western citizens’ embarrassing ignorance about real filth. It was actually pretty remarkable that nothing ever came up out of those holes. Infringed on the pretend spotlessness. Invaded the inner sanctity of the home. But Niklas knew—he didn’t trust the holes. Didn’t need them. He’d survived without them under circumstances that were significantly worse than anything a Sven could even imagine.

  He shuddered at the thought of what could come up through holes. Horror stories from childhood. Real experiences from Basra, Fallujah, the desert, the mountains. Every man who’s lived too long in a barracks knew what he was thinking about. As soon as you set your foot outside the zone, the sewage pipes were flooded with floating shit.

  Freshly showered and clean, in front of the TV. Newly bought DVD player in gleaming plastic. Fatigue and lethargy, overlapped. He was still sleeping like shit at night. Eight years in tents, barracks, compounds, cramped one-bedrooms with other men—it’d made its mark. Loneliness hit him every night like the recoil from a poorly handled assault rifle. Not that he totally freaked out—just like a pounding in his soul that disturbed the balance.

  He abstained from popping some of the pills Mom’d brought yesterday: Nitrazepam. Good for calmer nerves, sweeter thoughts, better sleep. But today he needed to be sharp. The people he was meeting today would be able to tell right away by looking at his pupils if he was on something.

  He watched Taxi Driver. Really not the right thing for him at the moment. Robert De Niro doing psychotic shooting exercises in front of the mirror. De Niro at a café with the whore—a crazy young Jodie Foster. The shootout with the psycho in the stairwell. Blood everywhere. It didn’t look real. Strange red color, too runny somehow.

  The loneliness kept ticking away. He thought, Really, a human being is always alone. You can’t get closer to your fellow man—no matter how good a friend—than you do to your neighbor in the tent. Physically, it can be so close that his bad breath ruins a whole night’s sleep. But in your mind, you never get so close that you can’t get up, pull your pants and shirt on, and disappear forever. And your tent neighbor wouldn’t give a shit.

  Niklas was alone. Just him.

  Against everyone else.

  He closed his eyes for a moment. Listened to the dialogue in the movie.

  Time passed as slowly as on surveillance duty down there. SSDD—Same shit, different day. Same anxious thoughts, but in a living room instead.

  It was almost time for him to go. Off to the interrogation.

  On the subway into the city. Sweden was a different country than the one he’d left—more anonymous, but at the same time more rushed. Back then, he often felt like he was just visiting. Now he really was just visiting. But all
the time.

  He thought about his exercises. The knives. Polishing the weapons. Well-known situations. Relaxed tasks. The interrogation didn’t really worry him. For the most part, cops were clowns.

  Ten minutes later, he walked into the police station. The female guard in the reception area had gray hair parted down the middle. Acted like a stiff soldier. No smile, short, concise questions. Who are you here to see? When? Do you have the extension?

  After five minutes, the policeman came and got him.

  The interrogation room: empty save for a poster. Pictured a few people around a table toasting one another happily. They might be drinking Aquavit. Maybe it was Midsummer. It was ages since Niklas’d celebrated Midsummer. The cop’d obviously tried to lighten the mood. Two wooden chairs with plush seat cushions, a table that was screwed into the floor, a computer with a small thumb drive attached to it, a cord that was suspended from the ceiling with a wireless mike on the end. The attempt at coziness wasn’t too successful.

  The police officer introduced himself. “Hi, my name is Martin Hägerström. And you’re Niklas Brogren?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay. Welcome. Please, have a seat. Do you want some coffee?”

  “No, I’m fine. Thanks.”

  Martin Hägerström sat down across from him. Logged in to the computer. Niklas eyed the guy. Corduroy pants, knit sweater. His shirt collar was popped. His hair was too messy, he couldn’t be a real cop. Roving gaze. Conclusion: this was a guy who wouldn’t survive more than three hours in the desert.

  “First, some routine stuff. You’re here for informational questioning. That means that you’re not suspected of anything. But we’re still going to record everything that’s said in here. Then I’ll transcribe it and you’ll get to approve it. That way, there won’t be any misunderstandings. If you need to take a break, just let me know. There are coffee machines and bathrooms out in the hall. Anyway, I’m assuming you know why you’re here. On June second, a man was murdered at Gösta Ekman Road. Right now, we’re gathering as much information as we can about this incident. The man hasn’t been identified and he was in pretty bad shape. You’ve been staying with your mom in the building for a few weeks, so I thought I’d just ask if there’s anything in particular you’ve been thinking about.”