It was surprisingly easy to get Hitman Anders to understand what he was supposed to say to the journalist and why. What was more, he even said what he was supposed to, plus a little nonsense too, but that was just how it went with him. Every time he was about to start saying something truly crazy, Johanna Kjellander had time to interrupt and supply her own version of matters.
The newspaper Expressen had sent the same reporter and photographer as they had two and a half years earlier. They arrived just two hours after being offered an exclusive interview with the hitman who had found Jesus and was now about to start a church. Neither of them looked anywhere near as nervous this time.
During the interview, Hitman Anders expounded upon the glory in giving rather than taking, even though he admitted that he and no one else had cheated parts of the underworld out of money. And that it had happened in the second-most ghastly way possible.
“Second-most?” the reporter wondered.
Well, in many cases the criminals had commissioned straight-out contract killings, and paid in advance. The only way this could have been more ghastly was if the murders had actually been committed. But, of course, they never were. The money meant for that purpose had instead been handed out to the needy, while the murderer who had quit murdering hadn’t kept a single öre for himself (except for a few comparatively minor expenditures in the form of communion wine and . . . communion wine). Incidentally, more donations were pending!
As luck would have it, the reporter asked for the names of those who had contracted Hitman Anders for hits. That gave the him the chance to remember to say that he didn’t want to say, because he prayed for them every night and would welcome them into the fold of his newly formed church, where he promised to introduce them to Jesus Christ, who, in turn, would take them into his arms.
“Hallelujah! Hosanna! Oh, me, oh, my,” Pastor Anders exclaimed, raising both hands to Heaven, upon which he received an elbow in the side from the priest.
This was no time to go off the rails: one crucial item remained. Hitman Anders seemed to have forgotten what it was. The priest had to remind him. “And also you have taken certain measures,” she said.
“I have?” Hitman Anders asked, lowering his arms. “Yes, I have! I have made sure that the names of all those who commissioned murders and broken limbs will be made public, along with evidence, in case I’m run over in the street or shot in the forehead or found hanged in an apparent suicide, or if I should happen to depart this life prematurely in any other way.”
“You mean if you die, the world will know who hired you as a hitman once upon a time and . . . Will we also learn who the intended victims were?”
“Of course! In Heaven we have no secrets from one another.”
The priest thought that the hitman was expressing himself in such a nutty fashion that it almost sounded good. And Expressen’s reporter continued to appear interested.
“So you’re afraid that the underworld is out to get you?”
“Oh, no,” said Hitman Anders. “I can sense inside me that they’re all about to become converts. Jesus’s love can reach everyone. There is enough for everyone! But if the devil is still riding any one of them, it is important for society . . . something. Hosanna!”
And with that, everything worth saying had been said. The priest thanked the journalists for their time, but now Pastor Anders had to prepare for his first sermon. “Which is coming up on Saturday, by the way. It will start at five p.m. Free parking and free coffee for all!”
The plan to meet the press again had been two-pronged. It was important, of course, to advertise the Church of Anders before the première. But in addition, the count, the countess, and the rest of the hooligans would learn just what they were in for if they harmed a hair of the priest and the receptionist’s pastor.
It was a good plan.
But not good enough.
Because the count and the countess were even angrier than anyone would have thought.