‘Hey, you!’
At dinner the next day, just as Brains had sat down at one of the tables, he sensed a shadow behind him.
‘Hi, matey!’
Juro gave him a thump on the back and sat down beside him with a more-than-full plate of spaghetti. Brains stared at his powerful shoulders and upper arms. Jesus Christ! Not an ounce of fat, just muscle. The Yugoslav looked like one of those people who could straighten a horseshoe with their bare hands. No, the legs of an oil rig!
‘Where have you been?’ Brains asked, hoping his voice sounded relaxed.
‘Isolation cell. Should be there but paper wrong.’
‘Bombed?’ said Brains, trying to sound criminal.
‘Bombing? No, not yet, bloody hell.’
‘No, I didn’t mean that.’ Brains turned bright red.
‘I stay low now a while.’ Juro pulled up a trouser leg and pointed at his tag. ‘Look, sock under so no rubbing. But more important, you know how short-circuit?’ He took a mouthful of spaghetti and it was like filling a container. Almost all the plate fitted in one gulp.
‘Mmm,’ Brains hummed. ‘Yes, that tag can be—’ He stopped himself at the last minute. Better to let Juro do his own thing. Otherwise the Yugoslav might try to enlist him again. Brains hardly had time to think that thought before Juro lowered his voice.
‘You not forget Handelsbank, yes? Now we have time, we plan.’
The Yugoslav seemed to have something big coming up. Brains breathed more heavily. He ought to keep well out of this, but …
The next morning, Juro was in the workshop waiting for Brains. He gave a sign that he wanted to talk to him. Brains fastened his piece of wood on the workbench and started the lathe. He was busy making a bowl for Rake. Brains had already made the basic shape, now he just had to make the hole in the middle. Rake needed something to keep his tobacco in. Juro cast a glance at the piece of wood.
‘You make?’
‘Yes, sometimes …’
Juro glanced over his shoulder to make sure nobody heard them.
‘You. Most ready now, but the lock …’
‘Oh yes,’ mumbled Brains. ‘To the bank vault?’
He nodded.
Brains didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, he wanted to know everything about the planned crime and where they intended taking the loot; on the other hand, he wanted to keep as much distance from the Yugoslavian mafia as he could. A gang of pensioners was one thing, the mafia was something else altogether. At the same time, the ultimate crime did involve somebody else carrying out the deed while the five friends took care of the loot. To do that, he must find out where they were going to take the booty. He turned the lathe off.
‘So it’s coming up?’ Brains threw a shy look in Juro’s direction. The tattoo on his arm was of a burning torch, a knife and a sword. At the top, on his shoulder, a skull grinned at you.
‘Just take away tag, is all,’ said Juro.
Brains breathed deeply. The electronic tag again. Should he say anything? No, perhaps not.
‘Now listen. Bank robberies are too risky. Besides, nowadays banks have so little cash. Hijack a security van instead.’
The Yugoslav’s eyes glistened.
‘But that means many shooting.’
‘No, find out which vans are being used. They must go in for an annual service check, right? Then you can have your mechanics there and arrange things.’
Juro raised his eyebrows, lifted his shoulders and waited for what was to follow. But Brains started the lathe up again. He felt that he must think this over.
During the break, he wanted to test a new fishing rod, but he didn’t get very far before he noticed that Juro had followed him to the jetty.
‘What this, then?’ he wondered, pointing at the extendable fishing rod with hooks attached to the line. Brains had an inkling that he might find a use for it in the future—perhaps to go fishing in a drainpipe.
‘Have you thought about how often a fish gets off the hook? Now some will get caught on these,’ said Brains, holding out a bit of the line with barbs.
‘But how … hurts, yes?’
‘No, no. When you carry the rod around, the hooks are covered with protective tops that dissolve in the water.’
‘Oh, right,’ said the mafia boss, looking confounded. He sat down.
‘You, that money van. Mechanics fix, what?’
‘Then I need to know more about the whole thing.’ Brains avoided looking Juro in the eye.
‘We stop van. Crow feet and machine guns. Then explode van door and drive direct Djursholm with sacks.’
Brains had considerable difficulty interpreting Juro’s rather limited language. Crow feet? What on earth …? But of course, he meant caltrops. Anyhow, he got the gist of what Juro was saying.
‘Forget the machine guns,’ said Brains. ‘The drivers are not armed. You want to manipulate the locks instead. That’s all you need to do.’
‘Money vans not bicycle locks, big locks …’ Juro indicated the size with his mallet-like hands. Brains opened his fishing-kit box with sinkers, hooks and lines and pointed at the lock. Then he took his chewing gum out of his mouth, put it between the bolt and the hollow, and closed the lid.
‘Now it looks as if the lock has engaged, but it hasn’t, not for real.’ He took a firm grip of the box and without using a key got the lid open again. ‘It’s the simple things that are difficult, you see?’
Juro was all eyes.
‘When the vans are taken in for servicing, your mechanics will be there. They will hollow out a bit more by the bolt and then fill the hollow with metal shavings and resin so that it won’t be visible. The doors won’t shut properly but it will look as if they have. And you’ll be able to open them, I promise.’
‘Raisins? Everybody laugh me like hell.’
‘Not raisins, resin, the sticky stuff from fir trees,’ Brains said, laughing. ‘But I said that I’m not an expert, don’t forget. The post sacks will be going abroad. Switch the sacks with similar ones filled with false money. Deliver them to Arlanda airport. Watertight. Nobody will discover that the money is false until it gets to London, and then the cops can search all they want, but it’ll be too late.’
‘You not stupid,’ said the Yugoslav.
‘Nowadays, lots of different firms have these security vans. There’s lots of money on wheels just waiting to be picked,’ Brains went on. He then went off on a long ramble about the security-van coups in Hallunda, Gustavsberg and some other places, and how the robberies could have been carried out better. He spiced his tales with details that he had snapped up at the Täby prison and hoped he would sound sufficiently knowledgeable so that Juro would talk with him about the robbery. Then perhaps he would let slip where he was going to hide the money.
‘If you don’t like that trick with the lock, then I’ve got another idea,’ Brains continued. ‘Why not stage a police check-point? Dress up as police officers. When the van stops and they lower the side window, you throw in something to anaesthetize them. Ether, perhaps, or I don’t know what. When the guards have nodded off, then you’ll have plenty of time to take out the money.’
‘You one of us man,’ said Juro.
‘No, don’t get me involved,’ said Brains. ‘I can’t manage another stint in prison. I’m too old. This is my last time in here. Never again will a guard lock me in and tell me what time I should eat and sleep. I want peace and quiet the few years I have left. You’ll understand better when you get older.’
‘But—’
‘Then there is my heart,’ Brains babbled on, putting his thin, sinewy hand on his chest. He wanted to fool Juro into thinking that he had left the life of crime behind him. In fact, his criminal career had only just begun. ‘Yes, it is tough getting old, but after the raid … by the way, have you thought where you can store the sacks?’ he asked, trying to look as indifferent as he could.
‘At eleven.’
‘Eleven?’
‘Yes, mother-in-law’s wine cellar on Skandiavägen … in Djursholm. Jesus, she has big house, big like castle, you know, with long fences. Then car to Dubrovnik and—’
Juro went silent when one of the guards approached, and Brains quickly did a cast with his fishing rod. He stared at the float. Juro had been more forthcoming than he had dared hope. If the Yugoslavs stacked the loot from the raid in that wine cellar, then the five of them would get their chance. Now he must find out the date they were planning to carry out the robbery, and do so without Juro getting suspicious. But that wasn’t entirely simple. It wasn’t only a case of duping the police. The League of Pensioners would have to delude the mafia too.
In the evening, Brains got out pen and paper and wrote a poem to Martha. This time he was even more cryptic than usual, and he wasn’t certain whether Martha would understand his poem. On the other hand, he didn’t dare be too specific. Stealing from the Yugoslav mafia was not something you did lightly.