THE OTHERS MANAGED TO STOP THEIR FRIEND, BUT NOT UNTIL she had been promised that she would be the first to count the money did she give in and climb into the minibus. While the others got ready to leave, Martha went in to see the night porter and the night guard and thanked them for their cooperation, assuring them that her husband had been so pleased and that she would always remember their wonderful hotel service. She wished them a good morning and that they would both soon be promoted. Then she gave a small bow and took her leave. But just as she was on her way with her walker, they stopped her.
“What were those strange noises?”
“Oh yes, goodness me, dear oh dear.” Martha sounded apologetic. “It was the new pump, the Argo three two one nine. It most certainly didn’t live up to expectations. We shall complain to the manufacturers right away. But at least it is good that we found out now. Yes, wasn’t it a dreadful noise?”
“That’s putting it mildly,” said the night guard and he pointed to the facade where newly awakened and angry guests on nearly every floor had opened windows and were gesticulating, shouting or giving the international sign for “Fuck you!”
“Yes, well, things don’t always work out as one expects, but if everybody was as friendly and helpful as you there would be peace in this world, I am convinced of that,” said Martha, and she bowed again and shuffled off with her walker.
The night staff remained standing there and watched her go off. Then they looked up at the facade again and shook their heads. In a way the old lady was wonderful, but this had definitely gone too far. It would be best to report it to the management as well as to the police. Those seniors might decide to celebrate something again.
WHEN MARTHA REACHED THE MINIBUS, SHE WRENCHED THE door open.
“Is everyone here? We’d better get out of here pretty damned quick!”
“We were waiting for you.” Anders opened the back door for her and Martha pushed the walker inside. When she, too, had got in and sat down, he drove off as fast as he could without arousing suspicion—after all, they were in a vehicle normally used to ferry the old and sick. He drove past the Östra Station, took the road past the Royal Institute of Technology and when they reached the Lill-Jan woods, he stopped. He quickly got out and changed the license plates, then they continued their journey toward Djursholm.
“Weird odor in here,” said Anders.
It did, in fact, smell a bit strange from the back seat. They all looked anxiously at each other. The weird odor was not a good omen, and Martha had to make a big effort to prevent Anna-Greta and the others from ripping open the trash bag.
“We must be careful. It’s better to open it in a safe place where we can take care of the money,” said Brains, and Anna-Greta, who had covertly opened the outer trash bag, and was just about to open the innermost one, stopped herself at the last moment.
“Yes, of course, yes,” she said and looked just as guilty as a little boy who has been caught being mischievous.
“The tights did indeed have reinforced heels and toes but the bags must be opened in a careful manner,” Martha made clear.
Anna-Greta cast her eyes downwards.
Anders speeded up and when they drove across the Stocksund bridge and were just about to turn in toward Danderyd, Martha saw in the rearview mirror how Anna-Greta was trying to sneak a hand inside the bag anyway.
“Tut, tut, Anna-Greta, naughty! Didn’t we just decide to wait?”
“Yes, but they are my tights,” Anna-Greta retorted stubbornly, but in a voice which grew weaker and even sounded a little guilty at the end.
When they reached their villa in Djursholm they passed Bielke’s garden and saw through the lilac bush that the autumn leaves had fallen upon the lawn on top of the former swimming pool.
“If that pool hadn’t been filled with concrete we could have hidden the money there,” said Brains.
“We are not going to hide anything anywhere, we’re going to use that money now,” said Anna-Greta, unusually decisive.
“For those in need!” Christina was more precise.
“Yes, whatever happens, we must never be greedy, however much we steal. Promise, all of you!” Martha held her index finger up in a strict gesture.
“Amen!” said Rake.
When they had parked, opened the back door and dragged the trash bag into the sauna in the cellar they could relax and Martha went to fetch the champagne.
“To think that we finally got ahold of the drainpipe money,” she said handing out the champagne glasses with a smile of satisfaction on her face. “We’d better celebrate right away. And then if the banknotes have been destroyed by insects or gone all moldy we will at least have had our little celebration.”
Rake looked at the label, held up the bottle so that all could see, and nodded.
“Um. Your philosophy of life isn’t so bad at all. A Henriot Champagne Brut Millésimé, indeed, you’re improving.”
“I agree with Martha. You should enjoy things in anticipation. If it all goes to pot, then you’ve worried unnecessarily, and if it goes well, then you can celebrate once again,” Brains said.
They all applauded, took their glasses and watched as Brains elegantly opened the bottle. After which he served each of them with a slight bow.
“Cheers, then!” they all called out in unison and quickly took a mouthful before putting the glasses down. None of them were really interested in the champagne; rather, they were like children on Christmas morning. They wanted to know what was in the trash bag.
“Righto everybody, shall we take a look?” said Christina and she had barely uttered those long-awaited words before Anna-Greta was there with the kitchen scissors. When she made a hole in the plastic there was a puff of musty odor, of rot, which reminded them of a mixture of compost, old eggs and a toilet that hadn’t been flushed for a long time. But this didn’t bother Anna-Greta. With a few quick snips of the scissors she had also opened the innermost trash bag and before the others had even come close she had pulled out the tights. They all tried to touch the somewhat shabby looking tights—all, that is, except for Rake who was more interested to see if his seaman’s knots had survived a whole year down the drainpipe. He eagerly picked up the remains of the trash bags and looked for his knots. He cautiously poked the marline and discovered that his double knots and bowlines were still intact but had acquired a greenish gray tinge. What if the bags had leaked? He was now beginning to feel apprehensive and was just about to grumble about the problem when the air was filled with a piercing scream.
“My tights are intact!” Anna-Greta shouted out, ripping one of them open and throwing banknotes up into the air as if she had been Scrooge McDuck in a bathtub full of coins. Banknote after banknote fluttered down and landed on the benches and the sauna floor.
“But ugh, it really stinks!” Christina coughed and held her nose.
“And what has happened to this?” Brains wondered as he held up the second pair of tights which was dirty gray and very, very long. It seemed to never come to an end. It was the longest pair of tights any of them had ever seen and they had evidently become extremely stretched when they had been hanging inside the drainpipe for so long.
“Aren’t we going to open that one too?” gasped a semi-groggy Anna-Greta who could hardly contain herself after having seen so many banknotes. “There ought to be two and a half million kronor inside. That pair of tights was almost new, so the banknotes ought to have fared even better than the others. At least they won’t smell so bad.”
“Less foot sweat perhaps?” said Rake and he took a chocolate mint.
“Empty out the banknotes so we can see how well they’ve survived. At any rate the tights seem to be dry,” said Martha feeling the nylon.
“Naturally. I know my knots,” said Rake, and he got hold of the foot end of the tights and swung them teasingly above his head until a pile of banknotes fell out. They sailed down and landed on the benches and the sauna stove and Martha gasped in horror. Not until she realized that the sauna stove wasn’t turned on did she calm down.
The whole floor of the sauna was now covered with banknotes, five hundred kronor notes, and they were just as excited as if they had just been out on a new bank robbery. Rake felt his blood pressure rising and had to sneak off to get his medicine. He had been given it at the hospital but hadn’t told anybody, not even Christina. He didn’t like those pills. A seaman was never in poor shape, and an old salt like him didn’t need any medicine. No, it didn’t fit with his self-image. Nobody noticed when he opened the bottle and took out his three white pills. He swallowed, coughed slightly and then joined the others again.
All day long the members of the League of Pensioners crawled around in the sauna and checked the banknotes on the floor. Some of them had turned dark and some were frayed in the corners, others felt damp and stunk, but most of them had indeed fared well in Anna-Greta’s tights with their reinforced toes. Martha and her friends couldn’t get their fill of staring at over ten thousand banknotes on the floor; they just kept looking at them, touching them and examining every single one very carefully. Brains sang a popular Swedish ballad about seeing Sundbyberg—his old home—before you die, while the others were content to hum “Money, money, money.” When they had gone through all the banknotes and sorted them in piles, they got out the champagne again, sat down on the sauna benches and toasted one another.
“You know what, when I see a successful mission like this it makes me think we ought to become robbers for real,” said Martha and she raised her glass.
“But aren’t we already?” Brains wondered.
Nobody said anything but just looked at the piles of notes until Martha opened her mouth again.
“Now listen, for the time being this is a rather uninteresting and more of a philosophical problem. We have more serious things to think about. How do we distribute several thousand moldy smelling five hundred-kronor banknotes to those in need?”