The Demon of Dakar

by Kjell Eriksson

  When the restaurant owner returned he looked decidedly more alert. The thin hair had been water combed back over his head and several drops of water glittered on his cheek.

  He glanced quickly at the double bed, the sheets lay wrinkled and bunched up at its foot, so he shook his head and sat down in the other armchair.

  “So, let’s do business,” he said and smiled broadly.

  Manuel longed for his tent by the river. He was tired and stiff and feared what was to come. Did he have enough power to stand up to Slobodan Andersson?

  “Fifty thousand,” he said and knew in the moment what he should do. Patricio would get money and Slobodan would be punished without Manuel having to exert any extra effort.

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “You trusted my brothers.”

  “How much do you have?”

  Manuel measured with his hands.

  “Two kilos, maybe more, I don’t know.”

  “If it is Angel’s package it is around two kilos,” Slobodan said. “And you are charging fifty thousand dollars? Do you understand what that means?”

  Manuel shook his head.

  “It is worth perhaps a million Swedish kronor. I can make five hundred kronor per gram. So far I have paid out one hundred thousand dollars and with your fifty thousand that comes to more than one million kronor. I get the money back and that is good, but I deserve a small profit,” he went on in a conciliatory tone, “I could perhaps scrape together twenty-five thousand. That is a fortune to you.”

  Manuel calculated feverishly in his mind but there were too many numbers.

  “My family has suffered a great deal,” he said.

  They negotiated a little longer and finally agreed that Manuel would get forty thousand. Manuel was sweating, while Slobodan appeared to be enjoying himself. He got to his feet with some effort, walked over to Manuel, and stretched out his hands as a sign that they were in agreement. Manuel hesitated for a second before shaking the hand of the man of the mountain.

  Have I sold my soul now, he asked himself.

  As Manuel stepped out onto the street below Slobodan Andersson’s apartment, he stumbled momentarily as if he had been struck, steadied himself by pressing his back up against the wall and brought his hands over his face. A woman who was walking by stared at his with undisguised curiosity and distaste.

  “Filthy scum!” she hissed.

  It was a little after nine o’clock. Manuel walked in the direction of Dakar where his car was parked, completely wrung out and empty inside.

  Forty-Five

  Detective Inspector Erik Schönell was deathly tired of American action films. Luckily, he only needed to watch a few seconds of the start of each film, fast-forwarding to check out a couple scenes further on, before he could eject the videotape from the player. The problem was that there were one hundred and twenty-two movies in Armas’s video library.

  Now he was done and he had found nothing notable in the collection. There was definitely no Mexican connection, if you didn’t count the murder of a Mexican family that occurred in one of the films.

  The porn flick that had been found on the top of Armas’s television was the only jarring element. Schönell had earlier watched several minutes of it and thought it was most likely shot somewhere in the Mediterranean region, perhaps Spain. The plot was very simple: a party of four golf players with athletic builds suddenly realized they were gay and devoted several days to traditional swinging and putting, with intermittent bouts of intense copulation in the sand traps and on the fairways. The dialogue was thin and scanty. The sex scenes were mechanical and without finesse. It was, in other words, a traditional porn flick.

  “A hole by any other word,” Schönell, who was an avid golfer himself, muttered, and inserted the tape into the player.

  He leaned back in his chair but then stood up and closed the door, adjusted the volume and sat back down again. On his initial viewing he had seen something that in a vague way awakened his interest. There was something in the film that nagged at him but he was unable to put his finger on it. Given that Lindell believed the videotapes could have an implication for the investigation—she had not elaborated on her interest in the Mexico angle—Schönell was determined to do a thorough job. No one would be able to claim that he had been sloppy. Most of all he did not want this Lindell at violent crimes to be able to find fault with him.

  The movie went on. Schönell checked the time and wished he had gotten himself a cup of coffee and a sweet. When one of the golf players inserted a club handle into the backside of his opponent, Schönell sighed heavily.

  The camera focused on the penetrated man. Sweat ran down his face and several fine pieces of gravel had stuck to his forehead. He rolled his eyes and pretended to be enjoying himself, though surely no one found pleasure in a five iron back there, Schönell thought. Then Schönell stiffened, fumbled for the remote control, played back the same scene and paused the picture at the moment when the man in the bunker turned his upper body and looked back at his partner.

  Schönell reached for the phone and dialed Lindell’s number. She promised to come by at once. Erik Schönell whistled smugly. I should have asked her to bring me a cup of coffee, he thought, and studied the picture on the screen.

  There was a knock on the door several minutes later. Schönell opened and pointed at the television without a word. The satisfaction in seeing Lindell’s chin fall, and her hand rise up at the frozen image was worth all the time spent watching bad movies with Bruce Willis and Sandra Bullock.

  “Holy shit!” Lindell exclaimed.

  “Isn’t it great?” Schönell said.

  “Good work.”

  This was exactly what Schönell wanted to hear.

  “It took awhile,” he said, “but I had the feeling there was something here.”

  Then he discarded his indifferent attitude and eagerly explained how many hours he had spent watching the videos, and how something about the porn film had nagged at him, and how he had watched it over and over again until he finally spotted the likeness.

  Lindell laughed and added a comment about his doggedness to her earlier praise.

  “Let’s call Otto. Do you have any coffee in here?”

  “I’ll get it,” Schönell said and rushed out into the corridor.

  Schönell’s office quickly became crowded. Whether it was the promise of seeing something awesome or Lindell’s enthusiasm that had lured their colleagues was of no importance to Schönell, who basked in the glory. People came and went and the speculation went into overdrive.

  “I bet it’s a case of blackmail,” Fredriksson said, and that appeared to be the theory that found the most support.

  Lindell did not say much, but studied the image with extreme care, seeing in the man’s eyes a desire to please but also the opposite, a kind of defiance. She estimated his age at between twenty and twenty-five. He had brown eyes and a wide forehead. But what clinched it was the small mouth and the cruel angle of the thin lips.

  The man could have been Armas’s twin. Lindell was willing to bet good money on his being the son of the murdered man. The question of which direction this find was going to take the investigation was already being discussed, even though his identity had not been confirmed.

  “This video may have nothing at all to do with the case,” Sammy Nilsson threw out.

  Ottosson shook his head.

  “It has a connection to Armas, and therefore to the case,” he said. “It has some sort of bearing on the crime. Well done, Schönell!” he added, cast a final glance on the television screen, and left the room.

  Before Lindell returned to her office, she delegated the tasks that the new find presented. She asked Schönell to arrange for copies of a number of pictures of the actor. Beatrice Andersson, who had been looking at the image with distaste for a few seconds, only to turn away, received the task of identifying the company that had produced the video and determine if they were in any way cooperative.

&
nbsp; Bea took a look at the cover and read the information in fine print.

  “It was produced in California. I’m more than happy to go there,” she said.

  Ann Lindell was too restless to return to what she had been doing earlier in the day, and ended up standing in front of the window trying to put together a picture of what had happened. If the man in the video really was Armas’s son, then that presented a complication. But it could also further the investigation. Was this blackmail? Had someone discovered that Armas’s son was a porn actor and tried to use this to press him for money? What did Slobodan know? He had claimed that Armas had no relatives. Was this a lie or did he simply not know about Armas’s son?

  Slow down, she thought, he hasn’t been identified yet. But that was an objection with little practical value. She had made up her mind: this was Armas’s son. The prints that they had secured on the videotape belonged to the blackmailer, she also decided.

  She walked over to the phone, located Slobodan Andersson’s number, and called him up. For the first time the restaurant owner sounded relaxed, even suggesting that he could stop by the police station if that was more convenient for Lindell.

  “What is this about?”

  “I have some thoughts that I wanted to test out on you,” Lindell said, trying to reciprocate his friendliness, even if she sensed an element of calculation in his unusually mild tone.

  They agreed that Slobodan would report to the police station reception area in one hour. During that time Lindell planned to read a report on Quetzalcóatl that Fryklund, a new recruit, had assembled.

  It turned out that the report plunged her into a description of Indian mythology that she had trouble following. There were too many unpronounceable names and, in addition, the information was periodically squeezed out by her memory of the frozen image on the television screen. But she managed to pick up enough to understand that Quetzalcóatl was a powerful god in Aztec culture. The recruit had also included half a dozen different illustrations that all depicted a figure with a frightening face and feathers. Some depicted a dancing figure.

  Attached was also a list of tattoo artists who had identified this god as one of their more popular designs. The first name on the list was a Sammy Ramírez from Guadalajara, Mexico, complete with address and telephone number, who used the exact design that Armas had had tattooed onto his arm.

  Lindell reached for the phone in order to dial the number, when it occurred to her that there must be a significant time difference between Mexico and Sweden. What time could it be in Guadalajara? She did not know and decided to take a chance.

  “Sammy,” a man answered in a groggy voice, followed by something in Spanish that Lindell did not understand.

  Lindell introduced herself and apologized for the fact that she was probably calling at an inappropriate hour. Sammy groaned but did not hang up, something that encouraged Lindell to continue in her labored English.

  The tattoo artist listened attentively to her story, that she was calling in regards to a serious crime and that they were looking for a white man who may have once have been Sammy’s client. She described Armas as best she could. While Lindell was zealously talking it struck her that this was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and she concluded her monologue with this metaphor.

  “And I am the needle,” Sammy Ramírez said, and Lindell heard a low, delighted chuckle. Sammy then told her that he could very well recall the tall man from Sweden. They had come into contact about two or three years ago. Armas had come to his studio and leafed through the folders with the different designs until he fell for the Quetzalcóatl. Why it had been this design Sammy could not remember, perhaps because he himself was drawn to mythological symbols and had spoken very warmly in favor of the Aztec god.

  “Did he say anything about why he was in Mexico?”

  “Not as far as I can remember. One reason I remember him so well is that he did not say very much.”

  “Was anyone with him?”

  “Yes, a fat man who stank of sweat. He came several times and watched but mostly seemed irritated.”

  “Where is Guadalajara?”

  “Western Mexico. About the same longitude as Mexico City but more west, toward the Pacific Ocean.”

  “What do people do there?”

  Sammy Ramírez laughed.

  “What do you do in Sweden?”

  “What I mean is, why was he there?”

  “I think he was traveling through, came from the north, perhaps from the States, on his way south. I don’t know. As I said, he did not say very much.”

  “Was he sensitive to the pain? I imagine it must hurt.”

  “No, it does not hurt very much, and from what I can remember he did not complain.”

  “Did he say that he was Swedish?”

  “I assume so, you are calling from Sweden.”

  “Do you have a fax machine? Could you look at a picture and tell me if it is the same man.”

  Ramírez gave her a fax number and they ended the call.

  Ann Lindell was having heart palpitations. The last hour had brought some breakthroughs. First the video, and now this. Then the question would be how far this could take them, but she felt as if the mystery of Armas was starting to crumble, the cracks were becoming wider and more visible.

  She called Fryklund and praised his thesis on the Mexican gods.

  “But it was fun,” he said, audibly surprised at Lindell’s overwhelming praise, and she wished in silence that more of them could say the same about their work.

  Then she faxed a photograph of Armas to Guadalajara. Three minutes later she received an answer from Sammy Ramírez: the man in the picture was the same person he had tattooed.

  Just as Ann Lindell had started to think about food there was a call from reception, informing her she had a visitor. Lindell peeked at the time. He was punctual. It was exactly one hour since she had spoken with Slobodan Andersson.

  On her way down she met the police chief and nodded slightly, but hurried into the elevator before he could come up with some cheery comment. She was not fond of him, and even less so since rumors had started that Liselotte Rask in the public relations department was going to be taking on very different work in the building.

  Sammy Nilsson had jokingly claimed that Rask was going to be appointed responsible for the meditation room in the basement. This was a room that very few, if anyone, ever visited and which served as a constant source of conversation. Someone had suggested that the master would be able to conduct gender awareness and relaxation exercises there.

  Slobodan Andersson was standing in front of the fish tank in the foyer, watching the fish. Lindell slowed her pace and took stock of him. Had he lost weight? He looked slimmer, if one could apply that adjective to a man she appraised to be around one hundred and thirty kilos.

  She walked up to him and perceived none of his earlier irritation. Lindell led him quickly and without speaking to her office. He looked around attentively, his breathing labored.

  “Welcome,” she said and offered him the visitor’s chair, which gave protesting creaks when he sat down.

  She went directly on the offensive, eschewing polite phrases and social chitchat.

  “I want you to tell me about Armas’s son,” she said, taking a chance.

  Slobodan looked taken aback.

  “What son?”

  “Come on, Slobodan! You knew each other for many years.”

  He denied having any knowledge of a son. Lindell believed him. Not because of the look of foolishness on his face, but more because of the hint of hurt in his expression. It was obvious how unpleasant he found this, not because he had to conceal anything but because Armas had kept him in the dark and not told him about his child.

  Lindell became unsure for a moment. Perhaps the man in the video was not a son at all, it could as well be a nephew or some other relative, but now she could not back down in front of Slobodan.

  “Let’s drop this,” she said lightly. “We
can talk about Mexico instead.”

  Slobodan was caught off-guard. The generously proportioned body trembled and he tried to smile but failed miserably. His gaze shifted between her and the door, as if he was considering running out of the room.

  “Why that?”

  “The tattoo Armas had means something, doesn’t it? You were with him in Guadalajara. And that’s in Mexico.”

  Lindell had to concentrate to pronounce the words correctly. Slobodan said nothing, so she carried on.

  “That’s why we need to talk about Mexico. Why did Armas choose a Mexican god and what could it mean to the person who killed him?”

  “I have no idea. How would I …”

  “You have to focus,” Lindell interrupted him. “What connection did the two of you have to Mexico?”

  “Okay, we were there,” Slobodan said compliantly, “but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s possible that Armas got a tattoo there, I can’t really remember. We partied some and I was probably not …”

  He fell silent. Lindell studied the sweaty man in front of her as if he were a new apparition, someone who had slipped into her office and whose identity she was trying to figure out.

  “What were you doing in Mexico?” she said, breaking the silence that for Slobodan, Lindell assumed, must have felt like a decade.

  He suddenly became enthusiastic and leaned forward.

  “We had some cash flow problems, you have probably already established this. We were maintaining a low profile, I admit this freely, but we kept our side of the bargain. The tax authorities received their due, didn’t they? And when times are tough you try to live cheaply and Mexico is affordable. You can find a hotel room for ten dollars. No luxuries, but you can survive.”

  “But then you came back?”

  Slobodan nodded. His breathing was labored after his speech.

  “And kept your side of the bargain. But the question is where the money came from. Did you find bagfulls of dollars in Mexico?”