“Although her main purpose in life was to remain silent and obedient, it’s said that she took offense. And just imagine—I can understand why. But after a few ups and downs, God gave ten new children to this nice dad. I expect his grumpy wife birthed them, or else they came in the mail. It doesn’t mention anything about that.”
Hitman Anders was quiet for a few seconds. He was searching his memory for a reasonable way to explain this, even if that was not exactly how he put it in his mind. The priest saw that he was shaken: there was hope!
The former hitman first mumbled that at least the Lord had sent ten new children . . . That was good, right? To this the priest replied that perhaps God wasn’t quite the right hand-holder if he couldn’t see that children, in relation to their parents, were not as interchangeable as car tires.
Car tires? In Job’s day? But by now Hitman Anders had thought up a better way forward: “What was that expression you used the other day when I had a go at you out for throwing around difficult words?”
Oh, no! The priest knew what the hitman was getting at. “I don’t remember,” she lied.
“No, you said that the ways of the Lord are . . . unfathomable.”
“I ought to have called him fickle, or seriously disturbed. I apologize . . .”
“And then you said that God’s wisdom is infinite and cannot be understood by man, didn’t you?”
“No—I mean yes—I mean I said that people tend to hide behind such wording when they need to explain the inexplicable. Like, for example, God’s ability to tell the difference between ten children and four car tires.”
Hitman Anders continued to listen only to that which he wanted to hear. And he argued accordingly: “I remember a prayer my mom taught me when I was little—you know, the piece of shit with the knocked-out teeth. She wasn’t quite so horrible at first, before the booze took over—how did it go? ‘God, who holds his children dear, Watch over me as I lie here . . .’”
“So?” said the priest.
“What do you mean, ‘so’? You heard it for yourself. God loves the children. We are all his children, by the way. I read that just yesterday while I was on the throne and—”
The priest stopped the hitman mid-sentence. She didn’t need to hear the other half. He’d already tricked her into giving him a copy of the New Testament and he had left it on a stool in the first-floor bathroom. Presumably he’d landed in the Gospel of John. Be that as it may, she had no ammunition left, apart from the central theological issue, the one that asks how the world can be as it is if God is good and all-powerful. This conflict was as talked to death as everything else, but perhaps Hitman Anders had never considered it before. Maybe there was a chance that . . .
At some point, the priest was interrupted. Hitman Anders stood up and said what he said.
And with that, catastrophe had become a reality.
“I’m not going to beat people up anymore. Or drink alcohol. From now on, I’m placing my life in Jesus’s hands. I want the payment for my last job, the one I did yesterday, and I’ll give the money to the Red Cross. Then we’ll go our separate ways, as they say.”
“But . . . you can’t do that,” said the priest. “I won’t allow—”
“Won’t allow? Like I said, I’m not going to beat people up anymore. But I’m sure Jesus would think it was fine to make two exceptions—you and the receptionist.”
CHAPTER 14
Then followed a night and a morning in which the priest got no sleep to speak of. As the sun began to shine through the blinds, she realized she had no choice but to wake the receptionist and confess the facts: she had accidentally caused Hitman Anders to find Jesus, and Jesus, in turn, had caused Hitman Anders to give up alcohol and beating people up for money.
Effective immediately.
Starting now, the only people on Earth whose heads he would even think of harming a hair on were theirs. And harm them he would, if they didn’t acquiesce to his demands.
“His demands?” wondered the bleary receptionist.
“Well, we owe him thirty-two thousand kronor, and he wants us to pay up so he can give it to the Red Cross. I think that was it.”
The receptionist sat up. He felt an urge to become very angry with someone, but he wasn’t sure whom. Grandfather, the priest, Hitman Anders, and Jesus were closest to hand. Yet he knew that there was no point.
Might as well get up, have breakfast, stand at his goddamned reception desk, and think logically to see where that might lead.
So their assault-and-battery business no longer had anyone to do the assaulting and battering, which meant they could not expect any further income. His revenge on Grandfather had been interrupted—unless Hitman Anders changed his tune. For that to happen, they would have to guide him away from God, Jesus, and the Bible, the trio that was such a bad influence on him, and move him back towards alcohol, pubs, and kicking his heels.
Per Persson barely had time to convey these thoughts to the priest before the former hitman arrived—at least two hours earlier than ever before.
“God’s peace be with you,” he said, instead of asking for beer and sandwiches as had been his habit until now.
It couldn’t be easy to go from being an alcoholic to a teetotaler in the span of one day. The receptionist suspected that an inner battle was raging in Hitman Anders, even if Jesus was still holding his own. This led Per Persson to launch a plan as hasty as it was treacherous. Hasty and treacherous plans were usually the priest’s specialty, so the receptionist soon felt extra proud when the outcome was as intended.
“I understand you’ll have a cheese sandwich, as usual, but surely you’ll want communion rather than beer, as one who walks with Jesus.”
Hitman Anders understood the part about the sandwich, but not the rest. He had never seen a church from the inside and, as luck would have it, he had no idea what communion was.
“Half a bottle, I’m guessing, since it’s still morning,” said Per Persson, placing some red wine next to the plastic-wrapped sandwich.
“But I don’t drink alcohol.”
“I realize that—anything but communion wine is out of the question. The blood of Jesus. Would you like me to remove the plastic from Jesus’s body for you?”
The priest realized what the receptionist was trying to do and came to his aid. “We didn’t quite get that far in our Bible study,” she said. “But I’m sure, Hitman Anders, that you take your faith seriously and don’t want to neglect consuming the body and blood of Jesus. As is becoming more and more common in our secular world.”
Hitman Anders had no idea what a secular world was, and he didn’t understand the connection between Jesus and plonk—but he thought he grasped that, in the name of Jesus, he could down half a bottle of wine with his cheese sandwich. Which would be fantastic, because something along those lines happened to be just what his insides were screaming for. Leaving all the drinking behind had been a hasty decision. “Well, no one’s perfect,” he said, “least of all those of us who are new to our faith. I realize I have no choice now that I walk with Jesus. But he and I actually met each other last night—doesn’t that mean I’m half a bottle behind?”
There it was. A small success amid all the misery. By now, Hitman Anders was convinced that he who truly walked with Jesus had better start with morning and afternoon communion and proceed with a more substantial evening communion before it was time for a free-for-all night-time communion starting sometime after nine p.m. He kept the thirty-two thousand kronor he’d been planning to donate to the Red Cross so he could invest it in the blood of Jesus.
But his refusal to work still stood. Four orders lay waiting, all accepted just before Hitman Anders and Jesus had run into each other. After that, the receptionist had been rather vague when contacted by potential clients. He’d said, “We’re fully booked at the moment,” or “We’re experiencing a temporary disruption in service.” But he couldn’t keep it up indefinitely. Was it time to give up the business? There was quite a
bit of money in the shoeboxes, after all—not for that striking hitman, but enough for the receptionist and his fairly beloved priest.
Yes, the fairly beloved agreed. There were no signs of improvement—that is, worsening—in Hitman Anders’s belief in God. So the priest saw no reason for herself and the receptionist to keep dealing with him. For all she cared, the hitman and Jesus could continue to walk side by side, preferably off a cliff if one happened to get in their way.
She could also live without the Sea Point Hotel, she said, but she added that she had become awfully used to Per Jansson’s company. It was like it was the two of them against everything else, and she would be happy to share both the shoeboxes and her life with him for all eternity, if he saw fit.
There was something special about a woman who, like himself, didn’t fully understand the purpose of fighting life’s battles. Yet they fought well alongside each other against everyone and everything. So Per Persson was also keen to continue along the path upon which they were already walking, on the condition she eventually remember his name.
CHAPTER 15
The shoeboxes in the room behind the reception desk contained nearly six hundred thousand kronor for the priest and the receptionist to share. This was their joint savings. In addition, there was a hundred thousand kronor in advance payments for work not yet completed; they would be forced to return those, since there were no indications that Hitman Anders and Jesus would have a falling-out.
The repayment of thirty thousand plus thirty thousand plus forty thousand to three of Greater Stockholm’s half- or full-blown gangsters was not something the receptionist was looking forward to. Partly because it meant a hundred thousand kronor less in the kitty, and partly because the clients had obviously been expecting results for their money, not money back with no interest. The general character of their clientele, broadly speaking, was not the most accommodating, the most flexible or understanding. There was a good chance the receptionist and the priest would encounter unpleasantness when they explained that Hitman Anders had stopped beating people up.
“It might be best to mail the money back with an explanation, then skip town,” the receptionist mused. “No one knows our names, we won’t be leaving a lot of clues behind—we’d hardly be able to find ourselves if we started looking.”
The priest absorbed what he had said in silence. He understood that she might need time to think—after all, they were talking about provoking three hoodlums in one way or another. The receptionist went on, “We could also consider keeping the money for ourselves—those three are going to be furious anyway. We really do have an excellent chance of staying under their radar. I’ve always been paid under the table, and I’m not listed as a resident anywhere, as far as I know. I didn’t even have time to put your name down in the ledger before you turned yourself from a hotel guest into a business proprietor and my partner. The whole world knows the name of the guy in room seven, but we’ll leave Mr. Suddenly Saved here, of course. I’m sure he’ll have fun explaining to all three clients that Jesus vetoed our operation and his former colleagues moved without leaving a forwarding address. Plus, in their haste, they happened to take all the clients’ money.”
The priest still hadn’t said anything.
“Am I thinking about this in the wrong way?” asked the receptionist.
The priest gave a friendly shake of her head. “No,” she said, “you’re not. You’re thinking the right way, but a little too defensively. As long as we’re going to swindle the type of people no one in their right mind would swindle—why not swindle them all? For as much as they can manage? And preferably a little more. A hundred thousand is good, but I’m sure you’ll agree that . . . say . . . ten million is better?”
The priest smiled a Mona Lisa smile at the receptionist, who gave a tentative smile in return. It had been just over two years since she’d approached him on that park bench in the hope of swindling him out of twenty kronor for a prayer in substandard packaging. This had led to their becoming first enemies, then partners, then friends, and eventually a couple. And now they were going to take off together. It felt great. That part felt great. But all the rest of it (Grandfather, Dad, Mom, the millions, and the thieves), how did that feel?
Ten million was a hundred times more than a hundred thousand.
How much greater was the risk? And what did she expect they would do with the money together, other than, in the best case, love each other for richer rather than for poorer?
The receptionist didn’t have time to pose the question, because Hitman Anders came down the hall, humming. “The Lord be with you,” he said, in such a mild voice that the receptionist was irritated.
Fortunately, he was able to take out the invoice he had prepared as revenge for everything. “For two years and thirty-six weeks Mr. Andersson has not settled his bill,” he said. “Two hundred and twenty-five kronor per night. That makes two hundred and twenty thousand kronor, if we’re generous.”
In the good old days anyone who had suggested payment for lodging in such a way would have risked a thrashing, but that was no longer the case.
“But, dear, sweet receptionist,” said Hitman Anders, “one cannot serve both God and Mammon.”
“That may be, and if it is, then I’ll start with Mammon,” said the receptionist, “and we’ll see if there’s time left over for the other guy later.”
“Good one,” the priest interjected.
“Wouldn’t it be better if you started by giving me a cheese sandwich?” said Hitman Anders. “Remember that you must love your neighbor as yourself, and I haven’t had anything to eat yet. Or the body of Jesus, as we say.”
The priest was irritated by the former hitman, too, and she knew her Bible: “‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,’ Luke six, verse twenty-one,” she said.
“Oh,” was the receptionist’s follow-up. “I wouldn’t want to ruin Mr. Andersson’s level of blessedness. I’m sure not providing a sandwich is the least I can do for him. I wonder if there’s anything else I can avoid assisting him with? If not, I wish him a pleasant day.”
Hitman Anders snorted, but he realized he wouldn’t get anything to eat unless he went to the pub. He was hungry, so he rushed off, mumbling that the Lord kept an eye on all our doings and that the priest and the receptionist ought to decide where they stood while there was still time.
Thus the priest and the receptionist were alone once more. The priest explained what she had been thinking: “Well, instead of admitting that the nutjob who just left has got religion, we can spread the word that the exact opposite is the case: that Hitman Anders is more ferocious than ever, that he no longer has any limits. For a certain period of time, we’ll accept orders for murders, broken kneecaps, poked-out eyes, whatever, as long as it’s expensive. And then we’ll take off.”
“You mean . . . disappear? Without having poked out any eyes?”
“Not a single one—not even glass ones! Partly because we don’t do that sort of thing. Partly because we don’t have anyone to do it for us . . .”
The receptionist made some calculations. How long could they accept orders without actually undertaking the work? Two or three weeks? Plus one or two more, with the excuse that Hitman Anders had gotten sick, and we apologize for the delay. Say, four weeks altogether. If they really went on the offensive, they could collect money for six or seven murders, twice as many complicated fractures, and twice as many traditional assaults.
“You said ten million,” said the receptionist, who was in charge of finances and contracts. “I’d say more like twelve.”
Ten to twelve million kronor on the one hand; a seriously enraged Greater Stockholm underworld on the other.
On the one hand again: the receptionist and the priest would have vanished without a trace—after all, no one knew their names or who they were. On the other: the gangsters would never stop looking for them.
“Well, what do you say?” asked the priest.
For the sake of artistic expre
ssion, the receptionist remained quiet for another few seconds. Then he copied the priest’s Mona Lisa smile and said their only chance of ever finding out whether they ought not to have done what they were about to do was to do it.
“So it’s on?” said the priest.
“It’s on,” said the receptionist. “May God be with us.”
“What?”
“It was a joke.”
CHAPTER 16
Fourteen point four million kronor later, the receptionist and the priest each packed a large, newly purchased suitcase, one yellow and one red, for their scheduled and permanent departure that afternoon.
The market had responded enthusiastically to the firm’s new, more violent offerings. The priest and the receptionist were surprised by how many people wanted to pay to have those around them cleared out of the way. The last, just a few days earlier, had been a feeble man who told them about a neighbor who had built a chicken run fourteen feet from the property line, violating the stipulated fifteen feet. And when the feeble man pointed this out, the neighbor had made faces at the feeble man’s wife. The feeble man was far too feeble to be capable of pounding justice into his neighbor, and if someone did it for him the neighbor would go for the feeble man as soon as he recovered. So the neighbor had to be cleared out of the way once and for all.
“For the sake of a chicken run?” said the receptionist. “Why don’t you complain to the city? Rules are rules, aren’t they?”
“Yes, but it turns out that chicken wire doesn’t count as a fence, so technically he was in the right.”
“And for that he has to die?”
“He made faces at my wife,” the feeble man clarified.
The priest could tell that the receptionist was about to forget that the neighbor with the chicken wire would be spared, and the only thing that would happen if they made a deal was that the feeble man would find himself with feeble finances as well. So she broke in and changed the subject: “How did you hear about Hitman Anders and his available services?”