Free Life Deluxe by Jens Lapidus Page A

went to hell. The pigs woke up.”
    They talked for a while. Went over Jorge’s recruits. What topped their to-do list. The Finn wouldn’t give up the whole recipe at once. Instead: piece by piece. They’d have to pick up information at spots designated by him. What a cunt.
    He continued to preach. “The thing is, you gotta do the right things the right way. You gotta do the right things, and they’ve gotta be done in the right way.”
    The dude talked routines. Never talk about the hit on the phone. Never even have a phone on when you’re talking about it. Switch phone plans as often as possible. Don’t talk with anyone on the outside, not even wives, bros, hos.
    “Can we meet the insider?” Jorge asked.
    “No, of course not,” the Finn said. “That’s not how things work in this business.”
    Jorge thought: the Finn was a cocky fucker. Okay, the dude had an insider in his pocket. He had ideas. But who would be taking all the risks? Who would be doing the dirty work?
    In J-boy’s head: a pitch-perfect idea. A thought was taking shape. A plan of his own. He was going to make sure he got paid extra for this gig. This CIT had to benefit him more than the Finn.
    He was gonna pinch more for himself. Rip the Finn off.
    Somehow.

8

    Torsfjäll had sent Hägerström to pick up insider information from a former Serbian hit man. They had mentioned him before, Mrado Slovovic. Sentenced to fourteen years in prison for one of the biggest cocaine-smuggling heists during the 00s.
    Mrado wanted his DNA, mug shot, and fingerprint entries erased from the police’s registries at his release. He wanted fifty thousand Swedish kronor in cash, ten thousand euros in an account in Beogradska Bank in Serbia, and the same amount in Universal Savings Bank on Cyprus. He wanted a house with a garden outside Ćačak. And there had to be a plum tree in that garden. Apparently the hit man’s daughter liked fruit.
    Torsfjäll claimed that he had promised him half the money and the house if only he spoke with Hägerström. He hadn’t promised him any plum trees.
    Mrado was valuable. Hägerström met him twice in the visiting room at the Hall prison. He offered up some general information about his former organization’s hierarchy and structure. Dropped names of restaurants, bars, companies. Above all, he name-dropped men. Everything revolved around the king,
il padre
: Radovan Kranjic.
    The Yugos were not like the MC gangs or the gangs from the housing projects. No colors or vests. No stupid names or tattoos.
    “All the papers write about the MC guys like they’re some kind of mafia,” Mrado said. “But look what happens when they hit a rough patch. The Bandidos, the Hells Angels, it doesn’t matter. There’re a lot of people who won’t back down, and then they go crawling back.”
    The Yugos’ solidity was built on more intimate connections than that. They shared sentiments about Serbia, about honor and glory. They all spoke the same language, liked the same
slivovitz
and
schlag
.They were close to one another, were sometimes family, in-laws, had houses in the same vacation resorts by the coast or in the Čačak region. They all respected Mr. R. Everyone’s
kum
, as Mrado put it. Everyone’s godfather.
    The man whom Mrado apparently hated. But also: the man who had built Mrado up into what he had been. And now: the man someone had tried to assassinate in a parking garage under the Globe Arena.
    Hägerström and Torsfjäll tried to see a pattern. Connections between companies and actual owners: the ones who controlled the finances behind the front men’s registered names. Video rental stores, tanning salons, and bars: laundromats. MB Accounting Consultant AB took care of the paperwork. They got lists of restaurants and cafés that paid so-called street insurance to Radovan’s boys. The deductible that had to be paid to the real insurance companies if something happened was higher than what the Yugos demanded for their protection