“She’s one person you should’ve met, Bo,” continued Johansson, “for she was in a class of her own. She ran the hotel in Kramfors back in the ration-book days, so those hold seven and a half centiliters, half a ration in the good old days.” First-rate stuff in that old lady, thought Johansson.
Jarnebring shook his head. He seemed almost a bit taken.
“Lars, my friend, do you know what you are? In heart and soul?”
Johansson shook his head.
“You aren’t some damn bureaucrat at the National Police Board, are you, police superintendent? In heart and soul you’re a Norrland landowning farmer, one of those shrewd bastards with mile-wide forests and a sawmill down by the river. If you’d just been born a hundred years earlier you’d have been drinking with Zorn and the lads down at the Opera Bar, not with a simple constable.”
Make it the Golden Peace, Rydbergs, or Berns, and you’re not talking about me but rather about my grandfather, or my big brother if you disregard the time period, thought Johansson. Besides, you’re wrong about me, but he didn’t say any of that.
“Gentlemen,” interrupted the restaurant owner with a slight throat-clearing and a deep bow. “Marinated lox according to the house recipe.”
He placed the plates before them; large slices of salmon cut on the diagonal, pink with streaks of white, lemon on the side, a splash of olive oil, and a few sprigs of fresh herbs.
“Drinks, gentlemen.” One of his assistants held out a tray with two large beers and two brimming-full shot glasses, which he placed with an expert hand before their place settings, first Jarnebring, then Johansson. Then he took a step back and bowed slightly.
“I wish you gentlemen bon appétit.”
Jarnebring nodded at Johansson and grasped the glass in his right hand.
“Skoal, chief!”
“Completely okay,” said Jarnebring after finishing the appetizer and two large shots from Aunt Jenny’s glass. He had, however, put the vegetables and lemon wedge into the ashtray before he tackled the lox. After that they talked about the old days. Since they were best friends it was both natural and necessary to start before their careers had separated them. While Johansson had climbed higher, Jarnebring had stayed put. It had been years since they shared the same worn-out front seat in a police car and drank the same bitter coffee in the break room at surveillance, and because they could only meet in their free time nowadays, they talked mostly about the time that they had worked together.
The theme was always the same: Things were much better before, at surveillance, at homicide, much better within the police department, to put it simply; even the crooks were understandable in the good old days.
“Do you remember Murder-Otto?” asked Jarnebring. “And the Sheriff?”
“And Dahlgren and Mattson,” continued Johansson nostalgically. “And Little Gösta and Splinter and the Gook and the Knife. Bongos, do you remember Bongos, and Åström and Sally? Do you remember Sally, the one that the uniformed police always arrested first when we’d done a raid? The one we called Chief Inspector Toivonen and looked like an ordinary drunk from Karelia who’d missed the boat back.”
These were all police legends and old bosses who had either closed up shop or disappeared from the story with the help of the general retirement system, but none of their younger colleagues had ever seen them sitting in the park behind the police station feeding pigeons.
“Sour old bastards,” said Jarnebring, “but damn capable police officers.”
“They knew what was good and bad and what was right and wrong, and then they could sort out what was important from pure nonsense,” said Johansson, who was feeling more than slightly affected by Aunt Jenny’s measures and tried to keep the conversation on a respectable level. On a Tuesday, thought Johansson. I can’t get plastered in the middle of the week even if he’s my best friend and things went south last time we met and.…
“Eva-Lena,” interrupted Jarnebring. “Do you remember Eva-Lena?”
“Eva-Lena?” Johansson, who was of the opinion that the police profession should be practiced by men, because ninety-nine percent of the time it concerned other men, but of course he would not dream of uttering a word of that, rooted feverishly among his old police memories.
“Eva-Lena, that broad who became head of the narc squad, the first female detective chief inspector in Stockholm. In the whole country, I believe. A light-haired, thin gal, a bit too thin, perhaps, but still rather tasty, swore like a tugboat captain. You remember her, don’t you?”
Johansson suddenly remembered. He had been loaned out to narcotics from surveillance in an emergency and the first night he had missed a routine tailing. Muffed it, to put it simply, because the thief was cleverer than him, because his wife had just left him, because he hadn’t slept since it happened, and because his children used to phone every time he tried to sleep, and because they immediately started bawling before he had time to say anything, and because their mother managed to hang up before … All the same, he’d muffed it and the following morning he got his new boss’s view on the matter.
“How the hell do you explain this?” she began.
Personal problems, thought Johansson. He had learned at school that that’s what you should say, but as soon as he started working he realized that that was pure nonsense, so he didn’t say it.
“He was better than me,” said Johansson. One to nothing for me, he thought, for he had seen how surprised she was.
“He was better than you? But isn’t just about everyone? Isn’t that so? I’ve heard that you’re a fucking piece of trash. That’s what my boys say. Surveillance sent us a fucking piece of trash to yank our chains.”
And someone ought to wash your mouth out with soap, thought Johansson, but he didn’t say that either.
“Almost no one is better than me,” said Johansson with an obvious Norrland accent while at the same time looking her straight in the eyes. To her credit it should be said that she hadn’t backed down, just stared back, but she had still lost because she was the one who had said something first.
“Okay,” she said. “You’ll get another chance. See to it that you’re here at seven o’clock.”
Instead he’d gone to his chief, one of those old legends. Johansson had chosen the easy way out.
“She’s badmouthing us here at surveillance,” said Johansson. “She’s badmouthing us and you too, and I won’t put up with that.” He added a little extra Norrland drawl at the end.
“Damn sow,” said the chief, who was already red under the eyes. “Damn pushy dyke.” He started to dial the number of his best friend, who was an old wrestler just like him and the head of the entire detective department, “and you,” he nodded at Johansson, “stay with me, lad. It’s those damn socialist bastards,” he explained. “You’ve got to be a socialist bastard in order to arrive at something so stupid as recruiting old ladies to the police.” He chuckled, leaned back in his chair, and nodded at Johansson that he could leave. Lapp bastard, he thought affectionately as Johansson left.
. . .
“Her I do remember,” said Johansson. “She was good,” he continued, “really good, almost as good as you and me.”
So she tried to sound like you and me, and behave like you and me and all the other boys, and one day she was simply gone, he thought.
“What happened to her?” asked Johansson, despite the fact that he knew the answer.
Jarnebring shrugged his broad shoulders.
“She disappeared, she quit, nobody knows,” said Jarnebring.
How the hell can you recruit women to the police? he thought, but because Johansson was after all a superintendent and as such more than halfway into politics he didn’t say that.
“Skoal,” said Jarnebring, raising his glass. “Skoal to all the boys in surveillance and skoal to the good old days.”
Who poured more aquavit? thought Johansson, a little confused. Someone must have, for Aunt Jenny’s glasses were full to the brim.
; “Gustav Adolf Nilsson,” said Jarnebring, smiling. They had taken a break in the middle of the entrée, Johansson was drinking wine while Jarnebring abstained to continue instead with beer, and a little extra on the side in Aunt Jenny’s glass, and the whole thing was just great. “Gustav Adolf Nilsson, born in thirty,” repeated Jarnebring.
“Your witness,” said Johansson. “The one with the mutt who got the shoe in the head,” he continued. Strange story, thought Johansson. Pure detective mystery.
“Vindel,” continued Jarnebring. “Do you remember him, almost ten years ago? When we were working on that robbery over at Odenplan and the double murder where I’ll be damned if it wasn’t our colleague at the secret police who was the perp. Do you remember?”
“Yes,” said Johansson. “I remember Vindel.” That other thing he’d tried to forget. “Was he the drunk who knew the victim?”
“Not today,” said Jarnebring. “The same Gustav Adolf Nilsson,” continued Jarnebring delightedly. “Alias Vindel. And both you and I are bigger drunks than he is today.”
“I would have thought he’d drunk himself to death a good while ago,” said Johansson with surprise. “The way he looked back then.”
“No way, José,” said Jarnebring, shaking his head delightedly. “Six months later he got an inheritance from his oldest sister, the only remaining relative. She had married a Pentecostalist who was a hardware wholesaler and twice her age. Vindel’s brother-in-law,” Jarnebring clarified, “but because he’d tricked Vindel out of half his parental home as soon as he’d sunk his claws into his sister, they didn’t exactly get together every day. Then the old bastard kicked the bucket, the Pentecostalist that is, and ten years later when it was time for the widow to go, she left the entire inheritance to Vindel. In spite of the fact that he hadn’t heard from her in twenty years. A case of bad conscience, I suppose, the old hag.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Johansson with genuine feeling behind his words.
“Sure,” said Jarnebring. “I thought I recognized him when we were over at his place, talking about his dead dog, but it was Hultman who connected the dots when we drove away from there.”
So Hultman was along, thought Johansson, but he didn’t say that.
“Not so strange,” continued Jarnebring, “for he looked like a damn athlete compared with when you and I saw him, and that must be almost ten years ago. Skinny, sinewy, Norrland athletic type, a real gray panther. Piles of dough from his sister and not a drop after the inheritance. He’s supposed to have said something to the effect that if you had as much money as he did you were simply obligated to quit drinking. He just went on the wagon and said farewell to all of his drinking buddies, from that day on. He’s still living in his old pad on Surbrunnsgatan, although now the building has been turned into condominiums, and then Vindel acquired the neighboring pad as well. Knocked out the wall and added on, treasurer of the association and loaded as a bank vault.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Johansson. “Vindel, that old lush.”
“Sure,” said Jarnebring. “I forgot to tell you that when you came up, ’cause all I was thinking about was that damn shoe. What a fucking story, pure detective mystery.” Jarnebring’s entire upper body was shaking with delight and because he was leaning forward over the table it could be felt in the whole place.
“Yes, I still don’t have the foggiest,” said Johansson. “As far as I know I’ve never met that Krassner.”
A shoe with a hollow heel, in the hollow heel a key to a safe-deposit box in the United States, and so far so good. If it hadn’t been for that slip of paper, thought Johansson. The paper with his name and address, despite the fact that he wasn’t in the phone book, despite the fact that extremely few people outside of his family and his closest circle of friends knew where he lived. Despite the fact that his secretary, and anyone else at his office, for that matter, would never dream of giving out his home address.
“A mystery, quite simply,” said Johansson gloomily, and that was exactly what he thought. A damn mystery.
“At first I thought it was the guys in the uniformed police who wanted to mess with you,” said Jarnebring.
I thought so too, thought Johansson, and nodded while he poured the last drops from the wine bottle. I should have stuck to beer like Jarnie, he thought. The same Jarnie who furthermore had replenished Aunt Jenny’s glass twice but still appeared capable of an arrest or two, which of course was more than one might expect of him. They might as well write a traveling testimonial for me, he thought and immediately felt cheered at the thought.
“Where was I?” said Jarnebring, taking a large gulp from his beer glass. “Yes, the guys at the uniformed police, the ones you were giving such a hard time a few months ago.”
In his capacity as head of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Johansson had led an internal investigation of a unit of the Stockholm riot squad. He had proceeded harshly and they had even had to sit in the pokey a while, but now it appeared that everything was returning to normal. Released from jail, back on the job although without a police van (at least for the time being), and with an indictment in Stockholm district court that would certainly run out in the sand.
“Damn crooks,” said Johansson from the depths of his heart. “How the hell can they let people like that into the corps?”
“Sure,” said Jarnebring, “I’m with you, and just say the word if you want to go outside and have it out with those fucking bastards, but as far as the shoe is concerned they’re innocent. They don’t know a thing about it.”
“I agree with you,” said Johansson, nodding down into his wineglass.
“It’s Krassner’s shoe. And for reasons unknown, he’s written down your address and put it into the heel of the shoe. Where the hell did my dessert go, by the way?”
Pure detective mystery, thought Johansson, trying to make eye contact with his friend the restaurant owner. An honest cop, he thought.
“I was thinking about that letter,” said Johansson.
Jarnebring nodded. They had finished off the dessert and were working on coffee and cognac. Johansson was having it mostly for show, but after half a bottle of Ramlösa mineral water he felt significantly more alert.
“Yes,” said Jarnebring, who didn’t appear to notice how much he drank.
“It was an electric typewriter, you said. Did you check the ink cartridge—one of those color-ribbon cassettes, if I understood you correctly?”
“What the hell, Lars,” said Jarnebring. “I am actually a policeman. Yes, I’ve checked the cartridge, and the only thing on the ribbon is just what’s written in the letter. Who the hell do you think I am?” said Jarnebring, taking a large gulp from his brandy snifter at the same time that he gave his friend the familiar wolfish grin.
“The wastebasket …” said Johansson.
“And the wastebasket,” interrupted Jarnebring. “The only thing in the wastebasket was the package the cartridge came in. As I said.”
“But you said that the piece of shit has been here for a month and a half,” persisted Johansson. “What’s he been doing that whole time? He must have been doing something?”
“I guess he’s been brooding about life and the future,” said Jarnebring, shrugging his shoulders. “Apart from that, he doesn’t seem to have covered much ground. I guess he had other things on his mind.”
“For more than a month,” said Johansson with obvious doubt in his voice.
“Just over six and a half weeks,” said Jarnebring. “I’ve checked the date. He arrived from New York at Arlanda on Sunday, the sixth of October. Jumped on Friday, the twenty-second of November.”
“Those books in his room,” said Johansson. “What were they about?”
“Various things,” said Jarnebring, grinning for reasons that Johansson could not readily understand. “There were some paperback mysteries in English; he seems to have read those at least, for they were fairly dog-eared. Yes,” Jarnebring searched his memory, “then there were
quite a few books about Sweden and Swedish history and politics, all of them in English. Sweden the Middle Way, The Paradise of Social Democracy. I’ve got a list in my report if you’re interested.”
Not particularly, thought Johansson.
“Damn it, Lars.” Jarnebring leaned forward across the table and put his right hand on Johansson’s arm. “Relax. There’s bound to be some simple and obvious explanation.”
“I’m listening,” said Johansson; at the same time he couldn’t help smiling.
“Let’s suppose this,” said his best friend. “Some semi-radical nitwit from the States comes here for various unclear reasons and has the exact same opinions that everyone else of his ilk has. One evening he’s at the bar and meets our own talents who think like he does and they stand there shooting the breeze and feeling at home and talking about the sort of thing that unites all those types, regardless of where they come from.”
“And what would that be?” asked Johansson.
“That people like you and me are real shitheads. Policemen. The biggest shitheads around.”
“I know what you mean,” said Johansson. He had heard it from one of his own children.
“Excellent,” said Jarnebring, “and at that point it’s one of our own leftist loonies who remembers that he or she—most likely it’s a broad, come to think of it—has read in the paper that there are actually exceptions even among the worst of the worst.”
“I see,” said Johansson.
“And so she starts to tell about what she’s read in the paper about you and your crusade against our colleagues at the Stockholm riot squad on account of that old drunk that they possibly beat to death, and Krassner gets completely hot in his trousers and decides that, by God, I’ll make sure to take that boy with me into eternity. And he proceeds to write down your name and puts it in his secret little shoe. Damn romantic,” snorted Jarnebring, “and if you don’t intend to foot the bill for drinks, I’ll get two with my own money. What would you like?”
“Let me think,” said Johansson, whose thoughts were going in a different direction than gin and tonic.
Between Summer's Longing and Winter's End: The Story of a Crime Page 8
