“You know this. Start tomorrow.”
Stefanovic knocked. Brought in chai tea and biscotti. Radovan leaned back. Dipped the biscotti in his tea. Like a Sven. Smacked his lips. They made some small talk about Radovan’s daughter. She was starting school. Private school, inner-city school, the suburban school-what was best? Mrado vented his own shit. That he saw Lovisa too seldom. The custody battle with the mother. Rado-style: asked if there was anything he could do. Mrado thought, Hell no. If Social Services finds out you’re in the picture, my custody battle is shot.
Two real Persian carpets on the floor. Radovan’d decorated this as his classicist room. The books on the shelves were mostly for show. On the shelves: encyclopedias and map books. Collected works by Serbian writers. Mrado didn’t even recognize the names: Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj, Sima Milutinovic Sarajlija, Kraljevic Marko. Only one was familiar: the Nobel laureate Ivo Andric.
Mrado thought about his teacher in Native Language Studies class, who’d gotten him to read Ivo Andric. A year later, he was Sodertalje’s toughest fist.
Radovan set down his glass of chai.
“The smokes business is going well. Goran’s good. But in the long run, we can’t rely on it. Society at large is against smoking these days. The ban on cigarettes at restaurants is catastrophic, the new pictures of black lungs are repulsive, and increased customs control with non-EU countries is devastating.”
“You’re right, but it’s important that we maintain our contacts with the teamsters. The logistics wouldn’t be easy to build back up from scratch. Soon all of the Balkans will open up with EU membership. Heroin is eight times cheaper there. Even if it rises somewhat, we’ve got to be prepared. The same truckers who drive smokes today can drive brown sugar tomorrow.”
They kept the discussion going. Went through all of Radovan’s businesses and projects: cigarette and booze smuggling, the debt collectors, drugs, the Jack Vegas gambling machine fakes, the apartment brothel, the call-service hookers.
And then the semilegal ones: Clara’s, the bar, and the Diamond, a nightclub. Laundromats.
The abstract read cash flow, rising dough, money that had to be taxed to come back clean. The bar and nightclub didn’t cut it. Radovan had to appear like a law-abiding, respectable citizen.
The conclusion: They definitely needed two video-rental stores. Maybe more.
All along, Mrado had wanted to get to the question of his cut of the coat checks.
Finally, he raised the tea glass to his lips and tried to drink from it, even though it was obviously empty. Hoped he’d softened Radovan up enough.
“Rado, I also want to talk about the economics of the coat checks.”
Radovan looked up from the number-covered papers that were spread out in front of him. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“Maybe I didn’t handle this whole Patrik thing too well. But I’m taking responsibility for it and I do a good job. We just went over the numbers. They point straight up. What’ll my cut be?”
Silence.
Mrado tried to push it. “Did you hear what I said?”
Concrete wall.
“Mrado, let me make one thing clear. You don’t make the rules here. No matter how fucking brilliant your business ideas are, they’re all mine. No matter how well you do your business, in the end it’s my cash. We’ll have a discussion about your piece of the pie when I feel like it. Let’s not ruin a good night with that kind of thing. I’m going to forget what you just asked me, okay?”
Mrado, speechless. How could he have made such a miscalculation? And he’d groveled like a fucking faggot begging to be reamed just to ask the question about his cut. Another thought took hold: One day, someone else will be king of the hill.
It was eight o’clock. They moved to the dining room. Radovan’s wife came home. Made small talk with Radovan and Mrado for half an hour. She was thin. Mrado thought she was the most beautiful Serbian woman he’d ever seen.
She ate in the kitchen with the daughter.
Radovan acted irreproachably. As though Mrado’s question’d never been asked.
The mood went back to normal.
They uncorked a Burgundy from 1994. Radovan tasted it. “I’m assuming you already know this, but Jorge Salinas Barrio fled the coop.”
“Ratko told me. I think some rag had a story on it last week, too. It didn’t say much, but apparently he hopped over the wall. Impressive.”
“It’s a bad thing he’s out. We wrapped him at the trial. He might be sitting on a whole mess of shit about our blow business. From what I’ve gathered, he’s pissed at us, and his life is pretty shitty right now. On the run, not a lot of friends. He might decide to do something stupid. I honestly don’t know how much he knows. Do you?”
“Not really. But I know what you mean. What should we do?”
“Nothing yet. But if he tries anything, we gotta stop him. Remind him who’s boss. Rough him up. Right, Mrado, the way we deal with troublemakers?”
Mrado stared down at his wineglass. Was that last statement referring to how Rado was going to treat him if he kept making demands? Either way, the Jorge thug should get it right now. The Latino was a threat to the Yugos.
Mrado had other things to think about. Deal with the coat checks after the Kvarnen fiasco, find a front man to build up the money-laundering biz, fight for his daughter. The Latino’d have to wait.
What’s more: no point in overstepping Radovan’s bounds, taking things into his own hands. Their relationship already felt strained enough.
He’d wait for a green light before he went after that Jorge fucker.
And their strained relationship-he had to think about that.
10
Jorge the man, rey de los bandidos, blew the popo outta the water. The 5–0 could drag their bloodhounds around. Forget it-they weren’t finding Jorge-boy.
He was out. He was loose. He was the city’s slickest slumdog.
He thought about how the gab must be rolling. The man who ran faster than Ben Johnson. The man who screwed the screws up the ass with his smarts. The man who caged out of Osteraker with the help of a couple of bedsheets and a hook from a basketball hoop. Slam dunk. Gracias y adios.
The man. The myth. The legend.
And they didn’t have a fuckin’ clue.
Jorge’s plans before the break had been well oiled. His plan now: stay alive, and stay free. Get cash. Bust the border. In other words: not much of a plan.
Santo Sergio’d delivered the ladder at the right place. Hauled ass to his car and driven outta the woods before Jorge’d even gotten halfway over the clearing. He’d parked the other car perfectly.
Fugitivo fantastico. A Latino with balls.
Jorge’d driven like a maniac down the forest road. Like a back-road racer. The COs missed his curveball, didn’t see him get in the car. Thought he was still booking it on foot. He’d planned it that way. The road forked three times. By the time the screws realized he was on wheels, it’d probably take them an hour to figure out which road he’d taken. Out on the highway. Past Akersberga. Exit. Into the woods. That’s where he’d met Sergio. Sergio’d jacked the car that he’d left waiting for Jorge three days earlier. They dumped it. A tank of gas in the trunk. Torched it. Not worth waiting around to watch the flames.
That’s where the trail ended: deep in Hansel and Gretel land.
If the 5–0 even got that far.
He’d arrived at the apartment at two-thirty in the morning. They’d waited all night in the car until the coast was clear-wanted to avoid neighbors seeing Jorge go in. They ate falafel, drank Coke and coffee. Listened to Hit FM. Chatted. Stayed awake. Jorge chillin’, coming down off the adrenaline high.
The following days: Jorge could live in the empty apartment. It belonged to Sergio’s aunt. The old lady’d been in a retirement home since seven weeks back.
The deaclass="underline" Jorge could stay for ten days tops. Jorge couldn’t so much as wiggle a foot out the door. Jorge had to lay subterranean low. After that, he could do what he liked, but he had to pay Sergio back for everything-he’d sworn his life on it.