“How is it, Bo?” said Johansson, nodding toward the broad gold ring on Jarnebring’s ring finger as he helped himself from the plate of cold cuts they’d ordered as an appetizer. “I thought she was supposed to give you one with a skull on it?”
“Like before,” said Jarnebring, smiling and shrugging his broad shoulders. “Damn good gal, actually. The ones with the skull were sold out, so it ended up being an ordinary plain one,” said Jarnebring, spreading his fingers.
“Nice to hear, considering you’re going to get married,” said Johansson. “That she’s a damn good gal, I mean.”
“Well,” said Jarnebring evasively. “That’s for sure, but it’s not going to be tomorrow, exactly.”
“You’re trying to stall for time,” Johansson teased. “Skoal, by the way.”
“No,” said Jarnebring with a certain emphasis, as soon as he’d set down Aunt Jenny’s glass. “But it’s for sure that there’ll be a certain adjustment.”
“I thought you said it was like before,” Johansson teased.
“What is it with you, Lars?” said Jarnebring. “Are you having problems at work or are you holding an interrogation, or what?”
“I guess I’m just jealous,” said Johansson, sighing. Perhaps you ought to take a swing by that post office, he thought.
“And here I thought you were jealous,” said Jarnebring, winking and smiling his usual wolfish grin. “Skoal yourself, by the way.”
…
Then everything had been as usual again. A little too much aquavit, perhaps, for Johansson to feel good from it-as usual it appeared not to have the least effect on Jarnebring-plus the usual stories in old and new versions about things that had happened since they’d last met.
“So how’s your new job?” said Jarnebring.
“You want a truthful answer?” asked Johansson, sighing.
“Obviously,” said Jarnebring with conviction. “How the hell would it look if people like you and me sat and lied to each other?”
“It’s probably the dreariest damn job I’ve had in my entire life,” said Johansson, and as he said that he felt it was the truest thing he’d said in a good while.
“Quit, then,” said Jarnebring. “You’ve got enough to get by. You can start in surveillance. Become one of those old owls.”
“Yes, in essence I do,” said Johansson, “but that’s not the problem.”
“What is it, then?” asked Jarnebring. “Do they have to shut down if you step down?”
“No,” said Johansson. No, he thought. “They could certainly find someone else.”
“Know what?” said Jarnebring, patting him on the arm. “I’ll give you some good advice.”
“I’m listening,” said Johansson, nodding. I really am, he thought.
“Stop whining. It’s only old ladies who whine, and that doesn’t suit you,” said Jarnebring. “Give some real thought to how you want it to be instead, and then it’s just a matter of seeing to it that it turns out that way. Write it down on a piece of paper and clip it securely to your big snout so you don’t forget what you’ve promised yourself.”
First you decide how you want it to be, and then you see to it that it turns out that way, thought Johansson. Sounds rather obvious, actually.
“Sounds good,” said Johansson, nodding, because he really thought so. “I’ll think about doing that. Seriously,” he added.
“That’s not good enough, Lars,” said his best friend, shaking his head. “You already think too much. Just do as I say, then it will work out famously.”
“I’ll do as you say,” said Johansson, nodding. “Although I’ll lose that bit with the piece of paper.”
I’ll do it. It’s starting to be high time, he thought.
A simple weekday dinner with only clear lobster soup, lamb filet, and a mango sorbet; with it a Chablis, which unfortunately was perhaps a bit on the heavy side, an excellent Chambertin, and a good port wine from 1934. Far from the best of the meals they’d enjoyed together, but their conversation had as usual stayed on a very high level.
“Did you know that Queerlund was a spy for the Russians?” asked the special adviser, sniffing in his glass of red wine. Orange, he thought. Orange, and a scent of perishability.
“Do the Turks have brown eyes?” Forselius snorted. “I’ve warned them about that damn fairy for forty years now, but do you think there’s anyone who listens?”
Queerlund was not from Denmark. He was a Swedish diplomat, now retired after a long and extraordinarily successful career. In addition he was homosexual, but in contrast to most others like him he had never made a secret of it. Within the secret police and the military intelligence service it was also an open secret that from the beginning he had sandwiched his diplomatic career with his mission as a spy for the Russians. Obviously his name was not Queerlund, for no Swede was named that. It was his code name among everyone who had tried in vain to put him away, and perhaps not well chosen, because even Queerlund used to find great enjoyment in telling everyone what they called him.
Queerlund was included in Krassner’s book in the form of a concise, routine declaration of his espionage and sexual orientation and the consequences the latter could have-“a sitting duck for the KGB Call Boys”-but in contrast to everyone else, Krassner also had an explanation for why he’d never been caught. He was the prime minister’s envoy to the Russians, and thereby also protected.
…
“Wonder why he’s never been caught,” said the special adviser with an innocent expression and his half-closed eyes directed toward a distant crystal chandelier. “If he’s been at it so long, I mean?”
“Bah,” grunted Forselius. “Hell, people like that are protected.”
Oh well, observed the special adviser. No bite that time.
Then they had proceeded to talk about other things, and only when it was time for the port and Forselius was thoroughly soaked with wines from Burgundy that he baited and threw out the hook again.
“I was thinking about that Pole you told me about,” said the special adviser with the same innocent expression. “The one you killed a few days before I was born.”
“You can be completely calm, young man,” clucked Forselius. “It had nothing to do with your mother, that I can assure you.”
Watch yourself, old bastard, thought the special adviser, who didn’t like it when someone spoke about his mother that way.
“I seem to recall you telling me that he’d dropped out through the window and broken his neck when he tried to flee? May I have the port, by the way?”
“Yes, what about it?” said Forselius, glaring suspiciously as he set the carafe beyond the reach of his host.
“I’ve heard that you shot him. May I have a little more port, please?”
“So that’s what you’ve heard,” said Forselius cunningly as he reluctantly pushed over the carafe.
“Yes,” nodded the special adviser while he poured more port both for himself and for his tablecloth. “Your old friend Buchanan shot him in the back out on Pontonjärsgatan on Kungsholmen.”
Forselius slid down a little in his chair, set aside his glass, and clasped his veined old man’s hands over his belly while he inspected his host.
“Congratulations,” he said, nodding with approval. “How did you get hold of Krassner’s manuscript?”
“How’d you get hold of it yourself?” countered the special adviser. Forselius slowly shook his head and tapped his broad forehead with his index finger.
“I haven’t seen a line,” he said. “Who do you take me for? I knew John. I was there, I can count. It’s no more difficult than that.”
Nice to hear, thought the special adviser. I still don’t need to worry about him.
“Tell me,” said Forselius with curiosity.
Then the special adviser told him everything, except how he’d gotten Krassner’s papers and who had given them to him. That was naturally the first thing that Forselius had asked.