Börje Ekman was raking his gravel path. It was truly his, and no one else’s. Hitman Anders happened by with Jerry the Knife trailing him silently. The pastor admired the quality of the raking and received kind words about his debut sermon in return.
“Not much to complain about there,” said Börje Ekman, both smiling and lying.
This white lie was his intended beginning of his three-step plan to, in Phase A:
1. have opinions about the contents of the sermons
2. proceed to inform the pastor of the main points he must stick to, so that the churchwarden could
3. write the Sunday sermons himself, just like in the good old days.
And to think that they had chosen to hold Sunday services on an early Saturday evening. He would work on that in Phase B. Or C, depending on how difficult the priest, the pastor, and that other fellow might end up being.
The hitman’s constant companion, Jerry the Knife, had enough sense to tell the priest and the receptionist about the incipient familiarity between the pastor and the self-designated churchwarden.
“Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble,” said the priest.
The receptionist nodded. That Börje Ekman called himself the churchwarden without having been designated as such was a small problem in and of itself. But he seemed to be married to the very church and the area surrounding it, and he would keep coming back, no matter how far Jerry the Knife and his crew chased him off. He would come back and he would discover what he had missed the last time, namely what large amounts of money they were actually dealing with. What was more, there was a risk that he would twist the already twisted mind of the pastor and make a huge mess of everything.
“Next time you and Hitman Anders catch sight of Börje Ekman, try to lead that scatterbrain in the other direction,” said the receptionist.
“Which one? The hitman or the guy with the rake?” asked Jerry the Knife.