Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All (2 page)

I
t's good to find happiness in little things. Such as the fact that months went by and Hitman Anders murdered neither the receptionist nor anyone else in the immediate vicinity of the hotel. And the fact that the boss allowed Per Persson to close the reception desk and take a few hours off every Sunday. As long as the weather—unlike most other things—was on his side, he took the chance to leave the premises. Not to kick up his heels: he never had enough money for that. Sitting still and thinking on a park bench, though, was always free.

That was where he was sitting, with the four ham sandwiches and bottle of raspberry cordial he'd brought with him, when he was unexpectedly addressed: “How are you, my son?”

Before him stood a woman not many years older than Per himself. She looked dirty and worn out, and a white clerical collar gleamed around her neck, though there was a grimy stain on it.

Per Persson had never put much effort into being religious, but a priest was a priest, and he thought she deserved just as much respect as the murderers, drug addicts, and plain old trash he saw at work. Or maybe even more. “Thanks for asking,” he said. “I guess I've been better. Or maybe not, come to think of it. I guess you could say my life is relatively not great.”

My goodness, he had gotten so personal, he thought. Better put things right. “Though I don't mean to burden the priest with my
health and well-being. Just as long as I get something in my stomach I'll be fine,” he said, signaling the end of the conversation by opening the lid of his lunchbox.

The priest, however, did not register the signal. Instead, she said she would certainly not be burdened by being of service—a lot or a little—if it would make his existence more tolerable. A personal prayer was the least she could do.

A prayer? Per Persson wondered what good the grimy priest thought a prayer might do. Did she think the heavens would rain money? Or bread and potatoes? Although . . . why not? He was loath to reject a person who only meant well. “Thank you, priest. If you think that a prayer directed toward Heaven might make it easier for me to live my life, I won't put up any fuss.”

The priest smiled and made room for herself on the park bench next to the receptionist, who was enjoying his Sunday off. And then she began her work.

“God, see your child . . . What's your name, by the way?”

“My name is Per,” said Per Persson, wondering what God would do with that information.

“God, see your child Per, see how he suffers . . .”

“Well, I don't know that I'm suffering, exactly.”

The priest lost her stride and said she might as well start over from the beginning, as the prayer would do most good if she weren't interrupted too much.

Per Persson apologized and promised to let her finish in peace and quiet.

“Thanks,” said the priest. “God, see your child, see how he feels that his life could be better, even if he's not exactly suffering. Lord, give him security, teach him to love the world and the world shall love him. O Jesus, bear your cross by his side, thy kingdom come, and so on.”

And so on?
Per Persson thought, but he dared not say a word.

“God bless you, my son, with strength and vigor and . . . strength. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

Per Persson didn't know how a personal prayer should sound, but what he'd just heard sounded like a rush job. He was about to speak up when the priest beat him to it: “Twenty kronor, please.”

Twenty kronor? For that?

“I'm supposed to pay for the prayer?” said Per Persson.

The priest nodded. Prayers were not something you just reeled off. They demanded concentration and devotion, they took strength—and even a priest, after all, had to live on this Earth as long as it was here, rather than in the Heaven she would eventually hang around in.

What Per Persson had just heard sounded neither devoted nor concentrated, and he was far from certain that Heaven awaited the priest when the time came.

“Ten kronor, then?” the priest tried.

Had she just lowered the price from not much to practically nothing? Per Persson looked at her more closely and saw something . . . else. Something pitiful? He made up his mind that she was a tragic case rather than a swindler. “Would you like a sandwich?” he asked.

She lit up. “Oh, thank you. That would taste good. God bless you!”

Per Persson said that, from a historical perspective, pretty much everything indicated that the Lord was too busy to bless him in particular. And that the prayer he had just received as nourishment was unlikely to change that.

The priest appeared to be about to respond, but the receptionist was quick to hand over his lunchbox. “Here,” he said. “Best fed, least said.”

“God leads the humble in what is right and teaches the humble his way. Psalm Twenty-five,” said the priest, her mouth full of sandwich.

“What did I just say?” said Per Persson.

She really was a priest. As she gobbled up the receptionist's four ham sandwiches, she told him that she'd had her own congregation until the past Sunday, when she was interrupted in the middle of the sermon and asked by the president of the congregation council to step down from the pulpit, pack her belongings, and leave.

Per Persson thought that was terrible. Was there no such thing as job security in the realm of the heavenly?

Certainly there was, but the president was of the opinion that he had grounds for his action. And it so happened that the entire congregation agreed with him. Incidentally, that included the priest herself. What was more, at least two of the congregants had thrown copies of the hymnal after her as she departed.

“As one might guess, there is a longer version. Would you like to hear it? I must say, my life has not exactly been a bed of roses.”

Per Persson considered this. Did he want to hear what the priest had spent her life sleeping in, if not a bed of roses, or did he have enough misery of his own to lug around without her help? “I'm not sure that my existence will be made any brighter by hearing about others who live in darkness,” he said. “But I suppose I could listen to the gist of it as long the story doesn't get too long-winded.”

The gist of it? The gist was that she had been wandering around for seven days now, from Sunday to Sunday. Sleeping in basement storage areas and God knows where else, eating anything she happened upon . . .

“Like four out of four ham sandwiches,” said Per Persson. “Perhaps the last of my raspberry cordial would be good for washing down my only food.”

The priest wouldn't say no to that. And once she'd quenched her thirst, she said, “The long and the short of it is that I don't believe in God. Much less in Jesus. Dad was the one who forced me to follow in his footsteps—Dad's footsteps, that is, not Jesus's—when, as luck would have it, he never had a son, only a daughter. Though Dad, in turn, had been forced into the priesthood by my grandfather. Or maybe they were sent by the devil, both of them—it's tough to say. In any case, priesting runs in the family.”

When it came to the part about being a victim in the shadow of Dad or Grandfather, Per Persson felt an immediate kinship. If only children could be free of all the crap previous generations had
gathered up for them, he said, perhaps it would bring some clarity to their lives.

The priest refrained from pointing out the necessity of previous generations for their own existence. Instead, she asked what had led him all the way to . . . this park bench.

Oh, this park bench. And the depressing hotel lobby where he lived and worked. And gave beers to Hitman Anders.

“Hitman Anders?” said the priest.

“Yes,” said the receptionist. “He lives in number seven.”

Per Persson thought he might as well waste a few minutes on the priest, since she'd asked. So he told her about his grandfather, who had frittered away his millions. And Dad, who'd just thrown in the towel. About his mom, who'd hooked up with an Icelandic banker and left the country. How he himself had ended up in a whorehouse at the age of sixteen. And how he currently worked as a receptionist at the hotel the whorehouse had turned into.

“And now that I happen to have twenty minutes off and can sit down on a bench at a safe distance from all the thieves and bandits I have to deal with at work, I run into a priest who doesn't believe in God, who first tries to trick me out of my last few coins and then eats all my food. That's my life in a nutshell, assuming I don't go back to find that the old whorehouse has transformed into the Grand Hôtel, thanks to that prayer.”

The dirty priest, with breadcrumbs on her lips, looked ashamed. She said it was unlikely that her prayer would have such immediate results, especially since it had been a rush job and its addressee didn't exist. She now regretted asking to be paid for shoddy work, not least since the receptionist had been so generous with his sandwiches. “Please tell me more about this hotel,” she said. “I don't suppose there's an extra room available at . . . the friends-and-family discount?”

“Friends-and-family?” said Per Persson. “Exactly when did we become friends, the two of us?”

“Well,” said the priest. “It's not too late.”

T
he priest was assigned room eight, which shared a wall with Hitman Anders's room. But unlike the murderer, whom Per Persson never dared to ask for payment, the new guest was required to pay a week up front. At the regular price.

“Up front? But that's the last of my money.”

“Then it's extra important it doesn't go astray. I could whip up a prayer for you, absolutely free of charge, and maybe it will all work out,” said the receptionist.

At that instant, a man with a leather jacket, sunglasses, and stubble appeared. He looked like a parody of the gangster he presumably was, and skipped the greeting to ask where he could find Johan Andersson.

The receptionist stood up straighter and replied that who was or was not staying at the Sea Point Hotel was not information he could share with just anyone. Here it was considered a duty of honor to protect the guests' identities.

“Answer the question before I shoot your dick off,” said the man in the leather jacket. “Where's Hitman Anders?”

“Room seven,” said Per Persson.

The menace vanished into the hallway. The priest watched him go and wondered if there was about to be trouble. Did the receptionist think there was anything she could do to help, as a priest?

Per Persson thought nothing of the sort, but he didn't have time to say so before the man in the leather jacket was back.

“The hitman is out cold on his bed. I know how he can be—it's best if he's allowed to stay like that for the time being. Take this envelope and give it to him when he wakes up. Tell him the count says hello.”

“That's it?” said Per Persson.

“Yes. No, tell him there's five thousand in the envelope, not ten thousand, since he only did half the job.”

The man in the leather jacket went on his way. Five thousand? Five thousand that apparently ought to have been ten. And now it was up to the receptionist to explain the deficit to Sweden's potentially most dangerous person. Unless he delegated the task to the priest, who had just offered her services.

“Hitman Anders,” she said. “So he really exists. That wasn't just something you made up?”

“A lost soul,” said the receptionist. “Extremely lost, in fact.”

To his surprise, the priest inquired whether this extremely lost soul was so lost that it would be morally sound for a priest and a receptionist to borrow a thousand kronor from him in order to eat their fill at some pleasant establishment nearby.

Per Persson asked what kind of priest she was if she was capable of coming up with such a suggestion, but he admitted that the idea was tempting. Though there was, of course, a reason Hitman Anders was called Hitman Anders. Or three, if the receptionist remembered correctly: an axe in a back, shotgun pellets to a face, and a cut throat.

The question of whether or not it was a good idea to borrow money secretly from a hitman was interrupted: the hitman in question had awakened and was now shuffling down the hallway towards them, his hair mussed.

“I'm thirsty,” he said. “I'm getting a payment delivered today, but it hasn't arrived yet and I have no money for beer. Or food. Can I borrow two hundred kronor from your till?”

This was a question, and yet it wasn't. Hitman Anders was counting on getting his hands on two hundred-krona bills at once.

But the priest took half a step forward. “Good afternoon,” she said. “My name is Johanna Kjellander and I am a former parish priest, now just a priest at large.”

“Priests are all a bunch of crap,” said Hitman Anders, without glancing at her. The art of conversation was in no way his forte. He continued to address the receptionist. “So, can I have some money?”

“I can't quite agree with you on that,” said Johanna Kjellander. “Certainly there are a few strays here and there, even in our line of work, and unfortunately I happen to be one of them. I would be happy to discuss that sort of thing with you, Mr. . . . Hitman Anders. Perhaps at a later date. At the moment I would rather discuss an envelope containing five thousand kronor that has just been delivered to the reception desk by a count.”

“Five thousand?” said Hitman Anders. “It's supposed to be ten! What did you do with the rest, you goddamned priest?” The bleary and hungover hitman glared at Johanna Kjellander.

Per Persson, who wished to avoid a priesticide in his lobby, was quick to add anxiously that the count had asked them to mention that the five thousand was a partial payment since only half the job had been completed. He and the priest at his side were innocent messengers, he hoped Hitman Anders understood . . .

But Johanna Kjellander took over again. “Goddamned priest” had rubbed her the wrong way.

“Shame on you!” she said, so sternly that Hitman Anders nearly did feel shame. She went on to say that he must certainly realize that she and the receptionist would never dream of taking his money. “We're hard up, though—are we ever. And while we're on the subject, I might as well ask, Hitman Anders, if you might consider loaning us one of those five lovely thousand-krona bills for a day or two. Or, even better, a week.”

Per Persson was astounded. First the priest had wanted to help
herself to the money in Hitman Anders's envelope without his knowledge. Then she'd had him on the verge of flushing red with shame for having accused her of that very thing. Now she was entering into a lending agreement with the hitman. Didn't she have any survival instinct at all? Didn't she realize that she was putting both of them in mortal danger? Curse the woman! He ought to shut her up before the hitman beat him to it with something more permanent.

But, first of all, he had to try to fix the mess she had just made. Hitman Anders had taken a seat, possibly out of shock that the priest, who in his world presumably would simply have stolen his money, had just asked to borrow what she hadn't had time to steal.

“As I understand it, Hitman Anders, you feel you've been tricked out of five thousand kronor. Is that correct?” said Per Persson, making an effort to sound fiscal.

Hitman Anders nodded.

“Then I must reiterate and emphasize that it was neither I nor Sweden's perhaps strangest priest here who took your money. But if there's anything—anything at all—I can do to aid you in this situation, don't hesitate to ask!”

“If there's anything I can do . . .” is the type of thing every person in the service industry likes to say but doesn't necessarily mean. That made it all the more unfortunate that Hitman Anders took the receptionist at his word. “Yes, please,” he said, in a tired voice. “Please get me my missing five thousand kronor. That way I won't have to beat you up.”

Per Persson did not have the slightest desire to track down the count, the man who had threatened to do something so unpleasant to one of Per's dearest body parts. Merely encountering that person again would be bad enough. But to ask him for money on top of that . . .

The receptionist was already deeply troubled when he heard the priest say “Of course!”

“Of course?” he repeated in terror.

“Great!” said Hitman Anders, who had just heard two of-courses in a row.

“Why, certainly we'll help Hitman Anders,” the priest went on. “We here at the Sea Point Hotel are always at your service. For reasonable compensation, we are in all ways ready to make life simpler for anyone, from a murderer to a marauder. The Lord does not distinguish between people in that way. Or maybe he does, but let's stick to the matter at hand: could we start by learning more about which ‘job' we're referring to here, and in which way it seems to have been only half completed?”

At that moment, Per Persson wanted to be somewhere else. He had just heard the priest say “We here at the Sea Point Hotel.” She hadn't even checked in yet, much less paid, but that hadn't stopped her from initiating a financial transaction with a hitman in the hotel's name.

The receptionist decided to dislike the new guest. Beyond that, he had no better idea than to stand where he was, by the wall next to the lobby refrigerator, and try to look as uninteresting as possible. The person who arouses no emotion need not be beaten to death, was his reasoning.

Hitman Anders was pretty confused himself. The priest had said so much in such a short time that he hadn't quite followed it all (plus there was that business of her being a priest: that in and of itself really mucked things up).

She seemed to be suggesting some form of cooperation. That sort of thing usually ended poorly, but it was always worth a listen. It wasn't necessary to start with a good thrashing in
all
cases. In fact, surprisingly, it was often best to do that part last.

And so it came to be that Hitman Anders told them the details of the job he had done. He hadn't killed anyone, if that was what they were thinking.

“No, I suppose it's hard to half commit a murder,” the priest mused.

Hitman Anders said that he had decided to stop murdering peo
ple, because it came at too high a price: if it happened once more, he wouldn't walk free again until he was eighty.

But the thing was, no sooner was he out in the world and had found a place to live than he had received a number of proposals from various directions. Most were from people who, for a substantial amount of money, wanted enemies and acquaintances cleared away, that is, murdered, that is, the thing Hitman Anders was no longer engaged in. Or, more accurately, never had been engaged in. Somehow it had all just ended up like that.

Aside from the proposed contract killings, he received the occasional assignment of a more reasonable nature, such as the most recent one. The object was to break both the arms of a man who had purchased a car from Hitman Anders's employer and previous acquaintance, the count, driven away in it and, later that evening, lost all the purchase money on blackjack instead of paying off his debt.

The priest didn't know what blackjack was—it wasn't a pastime either of her two former congregations had spent much time on during the fellowship hour after services. Instead, they had had a tradition of playing Pick Up Sticks, which could be fun now and then. Anyway, the priest was more curious to know how the purchase of the car had taken place.

“Did he take the car without paying?”

Hitman Anders explained the legalities of Stockholm's less legal circles. In this particular case, the car in question was a nine-year-old Saab, but the principle was the same. Arranging one or a couple of days' credit with the count was never a problem. A predicament would arise only if the money wasn't on the table when the time was up. And when that happened the borrower, rather than the creditor, was the one with the predicament.

“Such as one involving a broken arm?”

“Yes, or two, like I said. If the car had been any newer, ribs and face would probably have been included in the order.”

“Two broken arms that became one. Did you miscount, or what went wrong?”

“I stole a bike and paid a visit to the thief with a
brännboll
bat on the luggage rack. When I found him, he was holding a newborn baby girl in one arm, and he asked me to have mercy or whatever it's called. Since, deep down, I have a good heart, my mom always said I did, I broke his other arm in two places instead. And I let him put down the baby first, so she wouldn't get hurt if he fell over while I was doing my job. And fall over he did. I've got a mean wind-up with a
brännboll
bat. Though now I think about it, I might as well have broken both his arms while he was wailing on the ground. I've noticed I can't always think as quickly as I'd like. And when liquor and pills enter the picture, I don't think at all. Not that I can recall.”

The priest had gotten hung up on one particular detail in this story: “Did she really say that, your mom? That, deep down, you have a good heart?”

Per Persson was wondering the same thing, but he stuck to his strategy of blending in with the lobby wall as best he could, while remaining as quiet as possible.

“Yes, she did,” said Hitman Anders. “But that was before Dad threatened to knock out all her teeth if she didn't stop running her mouth. After that she didn't dare say much until after Dad drank himself to death. Oh dear, oh dear.”

The priest was in possession of a few suggestions for how a family could resolve its conflicts without knocking out each other's teeth, but there is a time and place for everything. At that moment, she wanted to focus on summarizing the information Hitman Anders had given them, to see if she had understood it correctly. So, his most recent employer had demanded a fifty percent rebate, invoking the fact that Hitman Anders had broken one and the same arm twice rather than two different arms once each?

Hitman Anders nodded. Yes, if by fifty percent she meant half price.

Yes, that was what she'd meant. And she added that the count seemed to be a finicky sort. Nevertheless, both priest and receptionist were ready to help.

Since the receptionist was unwilling to contradict her, the priest continued: “For a twenty-percent commission, we will seek out the count in question with the intention of changing his mind. But that's a minor detail. Our cooperation will not become truly interesting before
phase two
!”

Hitman Anders tried to digest what the priest had just said. There had been a lot of words, and a strange percentage. But before he got to his question about what “phase two” might be, the priest was already a step ahead of him:

The second phase involved further developing Hitman Anders's little operation under the guidance of the receptionist and the priest. A discreet PR job to broaden his customer base, a price list to avoid wasting time on people who couldn't pay, and a clear-cut ethics policy.

The priest noticed that the receptionist's face had gone as white as the refrigerator beside the wall he was pressing himself against, and that Hitman Anders had lost track of what was going on. She decided to stop talking so that the former could take in fresh oxygen and so the latter wouldn't get the bright idea of starting to fight instead of trying to understand.