15
C onvince me that you’re the best I can buy,” I challenged the Private Investigator sitting opposite me in my office, Danny Lam. Freddie recommended this guy who his cousin hired to find out if his wife was cheating. It turned out she was cheating with his best friend, and the rest was history.
But I didn’t want some amateur who photographed cheating spouses in the depth of night or followed hungry husbands to strip joints. I needed serious shit sorted, and I needed a serious attitude to go with it.
“I have an excellent portfolio,” he stated, “that I emailed you earlier, Mr. Kaiser.”
“Your portfolio consisted mostly of you chasing the tails of cheating husbands,” I asserted, unsure if this guy was the correct creed to nail my problem. But I hadn’t found anyone better yet who wasn’t heavily associated with Gothenburg police.
The last thing I needed was the police breathing down my back. So far, I hadn’t seen a single hair of a cop’s head since I was released from prison. However, I was aware that several members of the Savile Club were in the police and FBI.
“That’s what I’m mostly hired for,” he argued, lacing his hands together, looking a little intimidated by being here with me. Good. If I’m going to hire him, he needs to know that there’s a consequence if he fails. “But I have done other cases, such as missing relatives and loved ones, that police were unable to find.”
“Yeah, I read them,” I looked to Ronan for feedback, and he flicked me a look as if to say, ‘Why not? What have we got to lose?’ “You do have a good success rate, which was why Freddie suggested you, but we not wanting to hire you to find a loved one or some brainless broad who fucks over her husband.”
“But you want to hire me to find someone or something?” he questioned to clarify.
“Yeah, you can say that. Well…we need a murder mystery solved,” I explained. “Let’s just say it’s a Capone version of a whodunit.” He nodded but looked perplexed, so I elaborated. “That means what I say to you from this point onwards is strictly between you and me and my boy Ronan here. Got it?”
“Yes, Mr. Kaiser,” he replied.
“It also means that if you snitch to the police or the feds, then…” I took a cigar from my drawers, lit the end, and blew out smoke, taking my time. One thing I had a lot of these days is time. “You get the gist.”
“Yeah, I do,” he answered nervously. “Can you elaborate on who you want me to find?”
“Do you know who I am?” I asked him, just to make sure that we’re on the same page because I hadn’t been around for three fucking years, and the majority of my business was conducted back in Larsson before moving our HQ to Gothenburg.
“Yeah,” he replied after clearing his throat twice, indicating that he was either petrified or ate too much cheese for dinner. “I researched you.”
“You did?” I answered, surprised but pleased he had some initiative and wasn’t a lazy fuck. “And what did Google tell you?”
“The death…murder of Mr. Lars Kaiser, your uncle. Is that correct?” he was treading carefully to measure my tolerance levels.
“Correct.” I permitted him to continue for entertainment purposes since I hadn’t Googled myself or the case and had no intention of doing that. Fuck, most of what’s floating around online was likely made-up shit to create a sensationalism headline to sell newspapers.
“Lars Kaiser was shot dead, and a year later, you were arrested for his murder,” he sustained, pausing to test the air.
Even though my chest tightened in anger at his words, and I had to take a therapeutic pull of my cigar, I remained resolute on the outside, with an unanimated expression and eyes securitizing the stranger. Unflinching. Even under moments of extreme stress, one must never publicly crack. That was one of many important lessons Mr. Kaiser and Lars taught me.
“The conviction was overturned, and you were released three years later, and here you are,” he rambled on. “So…I’m going to make a preempted guess that you’re considering hiring me to find out who murdered your uncle and maybe… to find out who set you up.”
“No,” I corrected him. “We already know who set me up. But we…” I glanced at Ronan again, thinking of Lars’ son and her , the girl they kindly took into their homes only for her to thank them for destroying their lives. “We need to put this mystery to bed, Danny.”
I downplayed the scheme to Danny, making out that we just wanted to know who killed Mr. Kaiser and maybe give that information over to the police for them to finish the job. But of course, that’s not what’s going to happen at all because I couldn’t trust the police to wipe their own arses.
Once we find who murdered Mr. Kaiser, we’ll conduct our justice on the quiet under my order.
Danny listened intently, then took out a small notepad and pencil and flicked pages until he found a blank page. “So, have you got any clues or hunches on who you think was behind it?”
I hissed, slightly annoyed, “If we did, we wouldn’t be looking at hiring you.” I took a strong pull of my cigar to cool my fire as Danny twitched in his seat. “We’ve got nothing.”
“What about enemies?” he asked.
I chuckled and turned to Ronan, “This guy doesn’t know who the fuck we are.” I turned back to Danny Lam. “Of course, we have fucking enemies, but we drove them out of Gothenburg years ago, and we haven’t heard from them since.”
“What about our enemies in Larsson?” Ronan spoke for the first time since Danny Lam walked in.
I narrowed my eyes and pointed my finger at my boy. “Have they been harassing you? You didn’t tell me that.”
Ronan shook his brown head. “No, Mikky. We haven’t heard a dicky bird, but that doesn’t mean they’re not watching and taking notes.”
“C’mon, Ronan, if they were gonna strike, it’d be when I was otherwise occupied in the state penitentiary,” I argued confidently.
Ronan knew the rules. I hated secrets and surprises. His job while I was inside was to visit me every week and update me on our businesses. The Kaiser empire was my blood and soul, so no problem was kept from me, whether large or small. I relied on Ronan to do that, and he did.
“True,” he answered, “but it didn’t stop me from looking over my shoulder every few seconds. If they organized a hit on Mr. Kaiser, then what’s stopping them from coming after Gunner and me?”
“Who are you thinking of when you say “they”?” Danny asked after listening carefully to our conversation.
Ronan shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied, but something was on the tip of his tongue.
“Spit it out, Ronan,” I demanded.
“It’s the timing, Mikky. Mr. Kaiser was shot just after he bought this place,” he rationalized, and I could almost see his brain ticking over, analyzing the time, date, and scene, searching for a reason. That’s the problem. Nothing added up, and nothing made sense.
But Ronan was only 18 or 19 then, and it wasn’t until I was arrested that he threw himself into the deep end because he, Gunner, and the widow Mrs. Kaiser were the only people I trusted one hundred percent. Mrs. Kaiser, my Aunt Sylvia, ran the Larsson syndicate while we kept our heads down and under the radar in Gothenburg.
“We got a packaged deal because the Ivanov family wanted out with all that debt they accumulated and the IRS on their backs. It was me who drove them out of town after Lars was shot. I sent the pit bulls on to them because I didn’t want them sniffing around while I was conducting business. They had no reason to kill Mr. Kaiser, and in fact, we saved their asses. I didn’t want them on my territory because they left a bad smell around here, and we had to mop up their mess to establish a new and better reputation,” I explained to Ronan, but Danny Lam was taking notes.
“Toros?” Danny questioned. “I’m familiar with that family, and ah, I’d say that’s a good place to start. If you want to hire me, that is.”
I took a pull from my cigar and blew out smoke to give myself a chance to think it over for a few seconds. I’m not entirely convinced that Danny could come up with the goods, but there’s only one way to find out.
“What about Annika?” Ronan asked just as I was about to give Danny the go-ahead.
The sound of her name lit a fire in the pit of my stomach, although that fire wasn’t quite as fervent as it was when I had more time to stew in prison. “What about her?”
He pointed his chin toward Danny. “Do you want Danny to find her too?”
I didn’t know why the thought of hiring a sleuth disturbed me a little, and I had no patience to analyze why. “No. I want you to focus on hunting down the killer of Lars Kaisers, and I want weekly updates, right.”
“Sure. So, you’re hiring me?” he seemed ambivalent, and it was difficult to tell if he was pleased with that prospect. Maybe because he knew I’d get on his back, or perhaps because of what type of people we were.
“Yeah, but I want results. I’m not paying you to waste my fucking time,” I warned, and he flinched. “I want the name of Lars Kaiser’s murderer, and I want you to bring that name to me and only me.”
“I understand,” he stated, then adjusted his posture. Now he’s on the clock. “I’ll need to speak to witnesses-”
“There are no fucking witnesses,” I snarled at him, then turned to Ronan and pointed my thumb at Danny. “What’s up with this guy? If there were witnesses, we wouldn’t need to hire him. It’s taking a while for it to sink in.”
“Apart from Annika,” Ronan clenched his jaw, and tension claimed my chest again.
The girl created an internal conflict, primarily because of her age and our assumptions that the police manipulated her. But she should’ve come to us first. We were her fucking family. We were all she had.
“We don’t know for sure if she was a witness or paid or threatened to lie,” I suppressed my urge to raise my voice.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Ronan reasoned. “Let Danny find Annika as well.”
Something inside me struggled with hiring this guy to find her when it was better that we did that job ourselves. And I still had no idea what to do with her once we found her. Kill her? Strangle her and throw her body into the lake. I didn’t know.
Danny cut in, getting us back to business: “Look, I’ll need the names and contact details of everyone in Mr. Lars Kaiser’s life at the time.”
“Yeah, sure,” I pointed to Ronan. “Ronan can give you the names.”
“And the Annika girl?” Danny pressed, and I suppressed a cringe. “If she is helpful to the investigation, then…”
I looked to Ronan, who nodded. “We need to find her, Mikky, to fill in the gaps.” I noticed he used his words carefully when the real reason we wanted to find her was to make her pay for putting me in prison. But torturing information out of her came first, then we’d chuck her in the lion’s den. “At least it would put Gunner out of his misery.”
I snorted. “That’s one upside.” I took another drag of my cigar and blew out the smoke, suddenly finding the urge to pour a whiskey, even though it was only midday. “Fine. Find the girl. Bring her to me.”
Danny twitched. It was easy to tread his mind, wondering what he would do with her and if it would make him liable if he participated in her demise. “And what is Annika’s surname?”
“Annika Kaiser,” I mumbled. “Boyce.”
“Boyce?” Danny questioned.
“Before she came to our family, her surname was Boyce,” I flicked my hand dismissively. Talking about bottom feeders was an unpleasant conversation. “The daughter of a junkyard cat or drug addict, the dregs of society. As they say…you can take the girl out of the trailer park, but…”
“Alright, thank you, Mr. Kaiser,” Danny said as he left. I offered my hand for him to shake, and he turned to Ronan. And Mr…”
“Just call me Ronan,” he replied, shaking Danny’s hand. “If you want to follow me to my office, I can give you some names, and I’ll let them know you’ll be coming to speak to them.”
“Much appreciated,” Danny said, and they left my office.
The silence was welcomed as I grabbed my phone from the top drawer to call Sylvia in Larsson. A gentle tap at the door interrupted me, and I hesitated before allowing them to enter.
“Mikky, just me,” Betty poked her head into my office. “I won’t take long.”
“What is it?” I grumbled. The meeting with the PI put me in a bad mood. Although he’s likely to find out something relevant, I refused to get my hopes up that he’ll supply the goods. Secrets had been buried deep, and to access the key to unlocking the goldmine, he’d probably have to traipse the Larsson police department, and I doubted he was prepared to do that.
Betty wore a mischievous expression while hiding something behind her back; when she was at my side, she bent down to kiss my cheek with those scarlet lips. “Happy birthday Mikky.”
A white cube-shaped box with a red ribbon was placed in front of me, and I turned numb and checked the date on my phone. July 27 th . My birthday. Fuck. I hadn’t noticed, nor did I care.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to raise enthusiasm, but it wasn’t there, and Betty could tell.
“I’ll let you get back to your work,” she said, striding to the door. “And if you feel like company later, come down to the club and get one of the girls to fix you up something special.”
“C’mon, Betty,” I groaned. “Meddling with the girls was against my rules.”
She shot me a sharp look over her shoulder. “I was talking about alcohol,” she asserted sternly. “Good ol’ fashion liquor and ice.”
I smiled, and this time, it was genuine. “I’ve got work to do.”
“Sure,” she sounded disappointed. “But the members want to see you now you’re…out. They keep asking after you. The staff do as well. Many believe Mikael Kaiser is nothing but an enigma or fictitious character. A name that was merely thrown about to intimidate people.”
I wasn’t ready to mingle with the staff and members, but I knew that a good businessman always stood by his product and championed the customers who paid good money to buy it. But being in prison for three years changed how I viewed myself, and I’d been a little sheepish about getting back into the game. But Betty was right. She was always right.
“I’ll come down later when the club opens,” I told her just as she was about to shut the door.
“Good,” she mouthed with a blood-red smile.