Easy Money by Jens Lapidus

Author:Jens Lapidus [Lapidus, Jens]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Hard-Boiled, Crime, Organized crime—Fiction, General, Thrillers
ISBN: 9780307906823
Publisher: Random House LLC
Published: 2012-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

They were sitting at home, in the kitchen. Wood paneling along the walls and stainless-steel counters. A white Electrolux stove, linoleum on the floor, and a shiny wooden table from IKEA. The chairs were Carl Malmsten copies. There was a copy of a PH-lamp in the ceiling that cast a warm purplish glow. Above the sink hung green pots with words painted on them: Sugar, Salt, Pepper, Garlic, Basil.

The food was on the table. Thin strips of beef with a blue-cheese sauce. A bottle of red wine, Rioja. A carafe with water. A glass bowl with salad.

JW didn’t have much of an appetite. The food was good; that wasn’t the problem. It was really good. Mom’d always been a good cook. It was something else—the look of the place, the topics of conversation, and that Bengt talked with his mouth full. Margareta’s clothes were all wrong. JW felt like a stranger. The combination bothered him—contempt mingled with a sense of security.

Margareta reached for the salad. “Tell us more, Johan. How are things?”

A few seconds of silence. Her real question was: How are things in Stockholm? The city where our daughter disappeared. Who are you spending time with? You don’t run with a bad crowd, do you? Questions she would never pose directly. The fear of being reminded. The fear of coming too close to the dark scream of reality.

“I’m doing really well, Mom. Passing my exams. The latest one was on macroeconomics. There are over three hundred students in the class. There’s only one lecture hall that’s big enough.”

“Wow. There are so many of you. Does the lecturer use a microphone?”

Bengt, with a chewed gray beef mass in his mouth: “Of course they do, Mother.”

“Yes, they do. It’s kind of funny, ’cause they draw all these graphs and curves. You know, in a perfect market, the price is where the demand curve meets the supply curve. All the students copy every single graph into their notebooks, and since there are so many different curves, everyone’s got those four-colored Bics—you know, the pens with four different colors of ink in them—so they can tell the curves apart. When the lecturer draws a new curve, three hundred students switch colors at the same time. A little clicking sound for each one. It’s like a symphony of clicks in the lecture hall.”

Bengt grinned.

Margareta laughed.

Contact.

They kept talking. JW asked about his old school friends from Robertsfors. Six of the girls were moms. One of the guys was a dad. JW knew that Margareta was wondering if he had a girlfriend. He didn’t bother to share. The truth was, he didn’t even know the answer.

A sort of calm washed over him. Warm, safe grief.

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