The Demon of Dakar

by Kjell Eriksson

  They drove back to the police station in silence, but before they parted ways they agreed to meet the following day.

  “I need the perspective of an experienced colleague,” Liljendahl said and Lindell found this both flattering and irritating. She guessed that there was something behind the appreciative words. Maybe, she thought, her motivation was as simple as just wanting to piss off Harry Andersson.

  Thirty-Five

  Eva Willman chuckled to herself. In front of her on the table lay at least one hundred flyers. She already regretted having promised Helen to circulate them. The text was too aggressive in Eva’s opinion, too stark and bordering on schmaltz. Eva had little patience for the sentimental while Helen liked to lay it on thick.

  “But this is about our children,” Helen said, when Eva objected to one of the phrases.

  “But this one, Helen,” Eva said and read aloud: “‘… drug dealers are like predators who destroy our children, luring them into the marsh.’”

  “So?” Helen said. “If some bastard came here and threw our kids in the Stordammen to drown them we would stop him, wouldn’t we?”

  Stordammen was a lake with a swampy shoreline, encircled by a belt of reeds, located in the woods just south of the residential area.

  “We haven’t fully come to terms with what is happening,” Helen went on. “These are our children they have targeted. One should line them up against a wall, these damn pushers—no, that would be too kind—one should—”

  “You are not allowed to say that at the meeting,” Eva interrupted.

  Helen smiled.

  “Do you think I’m completely crazy? I am going to be exceedingly calm and dignified. You can talk instead, if you like.”

  There was a note of both derision and indignation in Helen’s voice.

  Helen had booked the old post office. That turned out to be a good choice because it was centrally located and, above all, everyone knew where it was. A good friend of hers had printed up the flyers at work. Helen had also organized coffee and cake through the congregation and invited the police to talk about drugs.

  Eva had suggested they invite some politicians but Helen had dismissed the idea with a snort.

  “We’re going to have to tackle this ourselves,” she said. “If those clowns took their jobs seriously, surely the schools wouldn’t be the way they are. Soon there will only be one school counselor per district. And there should be a community center worthy of the name, at the very least.”

  Helen continued to list the things she thought the politicians should do. Nothing came as news, and the more Helen talked the more tired Eva felt.

  Eva started in her own courtyard, walking from building to building and taping the yellow flyers to the doors. Then she continued on through the area, down toward the ICA grocery store and the pizzeria.

  She met several people she knew outside the store. She was slightly ashamed of the flyers with their silly phrases, but everytime she received some encouragment she felt more comfortable.

  “I’m glad someone is doing something sensible for once,” said a mother she recognized from the soccer practices.

  Maybe we could post a large advertisement outside the store, she thought, and went inside to talk to the manager, returning with something close to a promise.

  She knew that the rumor would quickly spread in Sävja and Bergsbrunna that Patrik and Hugo’s mother was running around with flyers like some kind of Jehovah’s Witness, and she wondered what her boys would say. They would be embarrassed, Eva felt sure about that. But, emboldened by the praise, she went by the nursery school on the way home, went in and talked to some of the staff, and was allowed to post flyers there as well.

  Eva called Helen as soon as she got home.

  “Wonderful,” she said. “It’s perfect that the flyers are yellow. And an other thing, I got Mossa’s mother to translate it into Arabic. She’s going to print it out. Do you think we need it in Kurdish? What does that boy in fifth grade speak? Is it Iranian?”

  “Yes, Ali’s family is from Teheran.”

  “If we don’t get all the svartskallar to attend, it won’t work. Then it will be like in France.”

  Eva did not protest her choice of words—svartskallar was a derogatory word for immigrants—and did not ask what Helen knew about France. She had probably seen a documentary on television.

  Eva promised to speak to the Iranian family, who had a boy in the fifth grade, and they finished the call. She sank exhausted into the sofa. On the floor in front of her was the magazine she had been reading the other night. She picked it up and leafed through to the article about the yacht off the coast of South America, and she realized that she had never swum in anything saltier than the brackish Baltic seawater, had never taken in a really salty gulp of water.

  She tried to imagine heat and sandy beach. Tropical warmth and fine, white grains under bare feet, and she smiled to herself. She knew it was only a dream and that she would never be able to afford to travel farther than the Canary Islands, if even that. For the past two years she had saved four thousand six hundred kronor in a special account. Last fall there had been almost seven thousand, but before Christmas she had been forced to withdraw several thousand.

  Her only hope was a Triss lottery win. Together with Helen, she bought a ticket every week, but so far the yield had been thin, some fifty kronor and, once, a thousand kronor. They had celebrated with a bottle of wine.

  She wanted to travel with Patrik and Hugo. It felt urgent because soon they would be too old to want to accompany her. It pained her that she could not offer them more of the good life. They heard about classmates who traveled both on winter and summer vacations, and once the usually so loyal Hugo had let it slip out that it was unfair that they could not go farther than to Värmland.

  But now the outlook was somewhat better. Donald had mentioned something about needing more staff in the kitchen, someone who managed the dishes. Right now it was the waitstaff that had to take care of loading the dishwasher and supplying the bar with glasses, but in view of the fact that the number of guests was increasing and that Eva was unused to the work, it was stressful. Perhaps she would be able to work a few extra nights a month and put away a little money?

  She was due at work soon. She smiled, happened to think about Donald and his resistance to the union. Maybe she should put Helen on him.

  Despite her reservations about her friend’s antidrug campaign, she felt strengthened. You could say what you wanted about Helen, and there were many who did, but she had a fantastic ability to make things happen, even if Eva was not getting her hopes up about the meeting at the old post office. There would most likely not be the turnout that Helen expected. To relocate a garbage room in your own courtyard was entirely different from altering county politics and fighting drugs.

  Thirty-Six

  Barbro Liljendahl parked on the street and the first thing she noticed was the Mercedes. Lindell had told her about Konrad Rosenberg’s car purchase. She also saw the scrape along the side that almost looked like a racing stripe.

  Therefore she was not all too surprised by Rosenberg’s opening remark when she introduced herself as from the police.

  “I’m grateful that you could come down here so quickly. You saw the car, didn’t you?”

  “Someone else will have to take care of that,” Liljendahl said. “We have something else to talk about.”

  The air in his apartment was smoky and stale, but it was surprisingly neat. They sat down in the kitchen. Konrad Rosenberg had a veteran criminal’s gaze. He pretended to be relaxed but avoided looking her in the eye.

  “Maybe we should talk a little about the Mercedes, after all,” Liljendahl said.

  Konrad looked up and she noticed a glint of hope in his worn face. For a moment she could identify with him.

  “It must be some kids,” he said and lit a cigarette.

  “May I ask how you can afford such an expensive car?”

  “I won on a race in Sol
valla. And I’ve only ever driven junk cars before so I thought …”

  “How much did you win?”

  “A couple of hundred thousand,” Konrad said and coughed at same time, as if the amount caught in his throat.

  “Do you gamble on a regular basis?”

  “Every week. I am the best client at the gambling station, and sometimes I go down to Solvalla and sometimes up to Gävle. Do you bet on horses?”

  Liljendahl shook her head and smiled at Rosenberg.

  “Are you acquainted with Olle Sidström?”

  Here Rosenberg displayed great finesse. He took a final drag of his cigarette and then carefully extinguished it in the overflowing ashtray.

  “Yes, he’s come out with me a few times, but that was more in the old days. He gets so overbearing when he wins. You need to be discreet when you play.”

  “Right now he’s not doing any gambling,” Liljendahl said. “He’s in the hospital.” “Oh?”

  “Stabbed.”

  Now Rosenberg’s defenses crumbled. Liljendahl watched as his wall came tumbling down, how his jaw slackened and how terror established its grip on him.

  Attack, Liljendahl thought, nonetheless she held back and allowed time for Rosenberg’s bewilderment to take hold before she told him about Sidström’s condition. She described in detail what his chest looked like, the way his fear had manifested itself, and what an urgent need he had to talk to the police.

  “What does this have to do with me?” Rosenberg tossed out and lit yet another cigarette. Liljendahl, who had encountered this question many times, smiled, but said nothing.

  “If he says that I owe him money then he’s bluffing” was Rosenberg’s next tack. “He’s always been full of shit.”

  “I am not here as an advocate for Sidström,” Liljendahl said. “I am investigating an attempted homicide and drug trafficking. I thought that, as an old addict, you would maybe have something to tell me.”

  Rosenberg shook his head.

  “I am a law-abiding citizen,” he said.

  Liljendahl could not repress a look of merriment.

  “And you have nothing to add,” she said.

  “No, nothing.”

  Before Barbro Liljendahl left Tunabackar she stopped by the magazine store on Torbjörns Square and confirmed that Rosenberg was a heavy gambler and spent “a thousand or so” on horse bets and lottery tickets.

  According to the manager, Rosenberg did “fairly well” and won small to “decent” amounts from time to time.

  Liljendahl realized that she had to uncover something concrete in order to break Sidström and possibly confirm a link to Rosenberg. She felt very strongly that Rosenberg was hiding something. The nervousness he had displayed was not the usual stress all criminals showed in their confrontation with law enforcement. She had managed to unsettle him and it would be a good idea to pay another visit to Rosenberg in a day or two, keep the pressure on and maybe get him to make a mistake. He would never start to talk of his own accord. Only new information would bring this about, and lead to him selling information in order to save his own skin.

  She also knew that the weak link in this chain was Zero. He was the one who had to start talking.

  Thirty-Seven

  Lorenzo was not happy, but the people around him did not usually notice a difference, since he was trained to maintain his composure. Olaf González was nonetheless experienced enough to take heed of Lorenzo’s right hand nervously pulling through his hair, smoothing it back.

  “Who?” he asked, and Gonzo wished he had an answer.

  “There are a couple of possibilities,” he began gingerly, “either someone in the business that Armas went too far with, or someone from his past has turned up.”

  When Gonzo found out that Armas had been murdered, his initial reaction had been to leave town. He was convinced that it was Lorenzo who was behind it, and since he was the only one who knew about Armas’s relationship with Lorenzo, he felt he was in a vulnerable position. Perhaps Lorenzo wanted to silence him in order to cover his tracks.

  “That much I have figured out on my own,” Lorenzo said. “But since you worked closely with Armas, I would have expected you to have picked something up, for god’s sake.”

  Lorenzo seldom cursed or raised his voice. They were sitting at Pub 19, each with a beer in front of him. It was half past six and there were only a few other people in the room. A couple of students were standing at the bar and a group of women, whom Gonzo assumed all worked together, had claimed two tables at the window looking out onto Svart-bäcksgatan. One of the women looked up and stared at them.

  Gonzo chose not to answer. Whatever he said, it would most likely rub Lorenzo the wrong way. Gonzo wanted to stay on his good side. That was his only chance. Since he had been fired from Dakar there was no possibility of working for another restaurant in town—Slobodan would see to that—and so Lorenzo was his only hope.

  Damn it, he thought, why did I have to go poking my nose in other peoples’ business? The first time Lorenzo contacted him, he assumed that it was about work, that Lorenzo was fishing for information and was looking to establish contacts in the restaurant business. That was at least how he made it seem, that he was thinking of establishing himself in the city and needed “points of entry.”

  Gonzo was flattered and saw before him the chance of advancement, and the very thought of walking into Slobodan’s office and tossing the keys on the table made him willingly tell everything he knew about Dakar and Alhambra. He did not feel disloyal because Armas and Slobodan had always treated him like shit. And then that Tessie bitch came along who thought she owned the place and could order him around like a house slave. What did she know about waitressing? He had worked his ass off for fifteen years while Tessie had taken it easy at some burger joint in Boston.

  He had realized too late that Lorenzo was aiming higher than that. He wanted to break Armas and in this way weaken Slobodan and perhaps take over his restaurants. But there was also something more that Lorenzo was after. Gonzo had never managed to put his finger on what that was. This feeling had grown stronger during the past week. Lorenzo’s anxiety could not be explained in any other way. There was more at stake than two restaurants in Uppsala.

  “What do the cops say?”

  “They said nothing to me,” Gonzo said and recalled how the police had peppered him with questions about his disagreement with Armas and why he had quit Dakar. “They thought I had something to do with his murder.”

  “And do you?”

  Lorenzo smiled as he posed the question.

  “Fuck you!” Gonzo exclaimed, and one of the youths at the bar turned his head to stare with curiosity at the duo tucked away in the corner.

  Gonzo took a large gulp of beer. He kept his eyes closed as he drank but felt Lorenzo’s gaze. When he opened his eyes again he decided to tell him what he knew.

  “I passed a package on to Armas,” Gonzo said, “but that turned out to be a mistake. He double-crossed me.”

  “Stolen goods.”

  Lorenzo nodded, posed no further questions, sipped some beer and smiled again.

  “If you wish to join us when we sail, you will have to step on board soon,” he said.

  “And what is the cargo?”

  “To join the crew, one does not have to know the nature of the cargo,” Lorenzo said.

  He stood up, pulled out a hundred kronor note, and tossed it on the table.

  “Multiply that with a thousand,” he said cryptically, and left the pub.

  Gonzo signaled to the bartender that he wanted another beer, mostly to quell the temptation to stand up and follow Lorenzo. He stared at the bill and mentally added three zeros.

  The beer was placed in front of him and at the same moment he saw an image from his childhood. A clothing line was suspended between two trees for his mother to hang the family’s laundry. His father’s colorful shirts were next to his own T-shirts and underwear, a red dress, and some sheets.

 
“How’s it going?”

  Gonzo looked up bewildered.

  “It’s fine,” he said.

  “You’re leaving Dakar, I hear,” the bartender said.

  Gonzo nodded, but the image of laundry was fixed in his mind. The clothes billowed gently in the breeze. It was the height of summer and Gonzo was standing in the open window on the second floor. For a moment he thought he could smell the laundry detergent.

  The bartender looked at him devoid of expression, and then left the table. Gonzo drank some more beer and wondered why he was seeing laundry. He had not been back to Norway for several years. Was this vision a sign that he should leave Uppsala and go home? The house was still there and his mother was probably still hanging the laundry in the same place.

  Gonzo finished his beer, stood up from the table, and walked briskly through the pub, suddenly extremely irritated at the women who were growing increasingly raucous. It was as if their laughter was aimed at him.

  What the hell do those bitches know about Uppsala, he thought and glared at one of them as he negotiated his way through the narrow spaces between tables and chairs. She met his gaze defiantly as if she sensed his thoughts and wanted to express her resistance and disdain.

  Once out on the sidewalk he could not decide which way to go. His own will had left him. He felt there was trouble brewing, a kind that was considerably worse than losing his job. An inner voice told him to go home, pool his assets, and book a ticket to Oslo. Maybe he could start over there, find a job and put Uppsala behind him forever. Another voice urged him to take revenge, even if Armas was no longer reachable. Slobodan was still there.

  An old man was pushing a walker along on the other side of the street. A plastic bag hung from the handle. The old man was making his way forward with the utmost of effort. But still he smiled. Gonzo shook his head and turned left toward downtown.

  Thirty-Eight