Free Life Deluxe by Jens Lapidus Page B

anyway, so most people chose the street variety. Now a few other gangs had joined the competition, but they would get whipped soon enough. The Yugos’ business empire was broad. The bodegas that bought smuggled cigarettes from Russia, the restaurateurs who sold moonshine poured into Absolut Vodka bottles, the coat checks at those same bars that didn’t want to report their income. The potentates who needed protection when they came to Sweden for half-shady business, business leaders and union hotshots who wanted women at their representational parties. And more: lots of business in the gray zone who were involved one way or another. Needed help collecting when Intrum Justitia failed. When the financial crisis hit. Needed protection when they had duped some whiny client.
    A lot of what Mrado told him was old news—he had been locked up for more than five years, after all. And when it came to JW, there was even less meat on the bone. Mrado hadn’t seen the guy during the entire time he had been locked up. But he had kept an eye on that little puppy, as he put it.
    According to Mrado, the guy was a financial genius who could have amounted to something big in the legal world. But it had gone to hell.
    It was ten past eleven. Martin Hägerström unlocked the front door. He peered in through the barred inner gate to the doormat. It was specially made by Liz Alpert Fay and existed in only one copy—this one.
    Resting on the Alpert Fay doormat were three envelopes and one plastic-covered magazine.
    He unlocked the barred gate. It squeaked.
    He liked his apartment on Banérgatan.
    He took his shoes off.
    He draped his jacket over the stool that stood against one wall and slipped on his velvet slippers—he didn’t traipse around in just his socks, never. Around twenty years ago, when he had been given his first flat, Father had come over and said, “All foyers need a stool.”
    And then he had set out a wooden stool from the classic design store Svenskt Tenn, with a seat covered in iconic Josef Frank fabric—a more potent seal of class than wearing a gold signet ring. It was timeless, and it was still standing in Hägerström’s hallway.
    The idea was that guests—and the person who lived in the place too, certainly—would have a chance to sit down when they took their outdoor shoes on and off. No one should be forced to bend down in an undignified manner just because they were changing into indoor shoes. According to Father, the presence of a stool simplified the hallway’s most important function. But Hägerström never sat on it. Instead, he threw his sweaters, gloves, bags, and jackets onto it. So his father had been a little bit right, after all—it simplified the life of the hallway, but not in the way Father had intended.
    On the wall was a ten-foot-square concert photograph of David Bowie, bought at last year’s Sotheby’s auction. Milwaukee Arena, 1974. Bowie was holding the mike, his grip almost looking cramped. He had balled his other hand into a fist, hard. He looked cool.
    There was a kilim rug on the floor in the hallway. Inherited crystal sconces hung on the walls. He liked his personal mix of old and new. Hägerström had been interested in decorating for a long time. It wasn’t something he had started getting into since the TV personality Martin Timell conquered the Swedish populace’s homes. Do-it-yourselfers, at-home tinkerers, pretend decorators, and so-called design experts had invaded all the TV channels but had failed to inform the people what good taste actually was. Everyone thought it was about the same old hackneyed Scandinavian design: Myran chairs, Super Ellipse tables, and AJ Pendulums. People were nervous; that much was obvious from how everyone thought everything had to look the same.
    He sat down with the mail in the kitchen. A vase with flowers stood on the sideboard. That was one of the cleaning lady’s additional duties—toalways make sure there were fresh-cut flowers in the