Sweden’s third and third-largest general criminal meeting was held in the same cellar as meeting number two. Fifteen men; since last time, two had been captured by the law after they had committed, while far too high on drugs, an armored-car robbery in which the armored car had turned out to be a bread truck.
Even though their spoils were no more than a ten-pack of sandwich buns from Eskelund’s Bakery (one of the robbers was hungry), loaded weapons had been involved and their punishment was handed down accordingly. Eskelund’s Bakery was mentioned in every newspaper imaginable, which led the manager of the bakery to send two lovely potted geraniums to the jail where the two robbers sat awaiting trial. The staff at the jail suspected attempted smuggling of narcotics: never before had recent arrivals been sent (or, for that matter, wanted to be sent) flowers as a thank-you for a crime poorly committed. Thus the geraniums were plucked to bits before they could safely be handed over to the recipients, which didn’t happen because there was no longer any point.
The current situation for the rest of them was that the count and the countess had departed this life after an intense battle with the brave brothers Olofsson, who were not exactly raring to give any more details about how it had all gone down.
“Trade secret,” Olofsson had said, while his brother nodded in agreement.
What was more, Hitman Anders was locked up and his peculiar church project abandoned.
The question that remained for the fifteen men was what they should do with Hitman Anders’s two sidekicks. All reasonable logic dictated that they were sitting on many millions of kronor. Since the hitman was safe and sound in prison, and thus alive, it shouldn’t be dangerous to have a not-altogether-friendly conversation with the sidekicks on the topic of “handing over all the money.” There were, however, fifteen different, absolutely unvoiced opinions on how the cash should then be divided among them.
The man called Ox argued that the sidekicks ought to meet the same fate as Mr. and Mrs. Count, like, for example, being forced to swallow a hand grenade each, and he also felt that the Olofsson brothers might as well take care of this, since they were on a roll.
After a certain amount of arguing, it was decided by a vote of 14–1 that it was not possible to swallow a hand grenade, no matter how hard a third party might push (and this was not even considering the security risk for whoever took on the pushing), plus that two blown-up sidekicks might provoke Hitman Anders to reveal things he shouldn’t.
So, no more killing for the time being. The consensus was still strong that the information about who had ordered what from Hitman Anders in regard to contract killing and general limb breaking must not get out. Even if the count and the countess were now spending their days in Hell (they would likely all wander that path one day), there were still plenty of revelations to be had about who had wished to harm a hair on whose head. Allowing the priest and the other guy to go free after they’d paid their debts would simply be a security measure.
A decision was made by a vote of 13–2 to assign Olofsson and Olofsson the task of bringing in the two sidekicks. The brothers managed to whine their way to a fee of fifty thousand kronor for the job; more was out of the question now that the ending of lives was off the table.
* * *
The unhappy brothers Olofsson had no idea where to start looking for the priest and the other guy. They began by hanging around the church for a few days and then a few days more. But the only difference from one day to the next was that weeds sprouted in the gravel path that led up to the porch. Beyond that, nothing was going on.
After almost a week, one of the brothers realized they could try the handle on the door at the top of the gravel path to see if it was unlocked. It was.
Inside, the church still looked like a battlefield; no one from the Enforcement Agency had prioritized the cleaning of the seized property.
But they were unable to find any clues about where the priest and the other guy might be.
In the sacristy, however, they found what had to be at least two hundred gallons of wine in boxes, and that was worth a try. It didn’t taste bad, but neither did it lead to anything, other than making their unpleasant existence slightly more pleasant.
There was also a bunch of comic books in a wardrobe. Judging by the dates, they had been lying there for thirty years or more.
“Comic books in a church?” said Olofsson.
His brother didn’t respond. Instead, he sat down to read Agent X9.
Olofsson moved on to a wastepaper basket alongside the sacristy’s desk. He turned it upside down and skimmed through various crumpled notes. They all turned out to be of the same sort—receipts for cash payments for a room at the Hilton near Slussen in Stockholm. First one night, then another night, then one more night . . . Had they been staying at the Hilton, those pigs, and paying for it with the money that belonged to the Olofssons and the others? One night at a time. Always ready to take off.
“Come on!” said Olofsson, who had just reached what was, without question, the most gifted conclusion of his entire life.
“Hold on a minute,” said Olofsson, who was now in the middle of an issue of Modesty Blaise.