Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All (10 page)

E
xactly three hundred and ten miles northeast of Hässleholm, a businessman in car sales was having a discussion with his girlfriend. Both of them—like the majority of the nation—had had the chance to read the articles about the hitman who had cheated the underworld out of money.

The car salesman and his lawfully unwedded were among those cheated. And possibly among the least forgiving. Partly because forgiving was not in their nature, and partly because, in addition to all the money they'd lost, they'd been robbed of a camper.

“What do you say we cut him up into pieces, a little at a time, starting from the bottom and working our way up?” said the man who, in criminal circles, was called the count.

“You mean we'll, like, carve him up, just slowly enough, while he's still alive?” said his countess.

“More or less.”

“Sounds good. As long I can do some of the carving.”

“Of course, my darling,” said the count. “All we have to do is find him.”

A
fter the incidents with the Red Cross and the Salvationist, the priest drove northwards again. After Växjö and Hässleholm, Malmö was the next logical landing point for anyone who might be looking for them. For this reason, the priest, the receptionist, and the hitman were on their way in the opposite direction.

Hitman Anders was snoring on a mattress on top of the two suitcases at the very back of the vehicle when the priest turned off at a rest stop by a lake somewhere around the border between Halland and Västergötland. She stopped, turned off the engine, and pointed at a grill site down by the water.

“Meeting,” she said quietly, so as not to wake Hitman Anders.

The receptionist nodded. He and the priest walked down to the lake and each sat on a rock by the grill site. Both felt that this might have been a pleasant moment if only everything weren't so
un
pleasant.

“I hereby declare this meeting open,” said the priest, still quietly, so that the newly saved hitman in the camper definitely wouldn't hear her.

“Then I declare it duly announced,” the receptionist whispered back. “And I regret that not everyone obeyed the summons. What do we have on the agenda?”

“There's only one issue,” said the priest. “How will we get rid of that sleeping nuisance in the camper, without losing our own lives in the process? And preferably while our money continues to belong
solely to us. Not to Hitman Anders. Or to the Salvation Army. Or to Save the Children. Or to whomever or whatever we might encounter moving forward.”

The first idea that seemed like it might take hold was to hire a contract killer and assign him or her the task of doing away with their own version of the same. The problem was that there were a few too many people in those circles who might find out that they had just been cheated by the priest and the receptionist in Hitman Anders's name.

No, it was too risky to get a murderer to murder their murderer. Not to mention verging on immoral. Instead, the priest thought of the simplest possible solution. What would happen if they just drove off as soon as Hitman Anders had left the vehicle to take a leak on some tree or another?

“Well,” said the receptionist. “What would happen is probably . . . that we would be rid of him?”

“And we would still have all our money,” the priest added.

It was as simple as that! Why, they should have thought of this back at the Växjö Red Cross. “Be right back!” Hitman Anders had said as he exited the camper. The priest and the receptionist had had an entire thirty seconds to gather their thoughts, come to the proper conclusions—and drive away.

An entire thirty seconds!
they realized, nine hours later.

The meeting was over. The decision was unanimous: they would not be too hasty; they would wait and see what happened. Lie low for three days, take in what the media was reporting about the incidents in Växjö and Hässleholm, and gather details about how badly Hitman Anders had managed to frighten the nation, whether their identities remained protected, and how much effort was being put into pursuing them.

And after that: take action, using the knowledge they had gained as a foundation. All with the clear goal of separating themselves and their suitcases from the man who was currently snoring in the camper.

They had parked in such a way that it was not visible from the road. Provisions could be obtained at a gas station a mile away. The receptionist offered to walk there and back while the priest guarded Hitman Anders; her primary task was to prevent him from darting into the woods to give away a million or two if someone happened by.

T
he two financial gifts in Växjö and Hässleholm were initially treated as criminal acts, high-priority ones at that, given that they had been committed by a person who was said to be the most dangerous man in Sweden: 475,000 kronor was seized from the Red Cross in Växjö, and 560,000 from the Salvation Army in Hässleholm. The police in the two southern Swedish towns were cooperating with each other.

The establishment in Växjö was the type of store where people donate things, others purchase them, and the profits are sent to one of the world's most miserable corners. On the day in question, there were two employees and just as many customers in the shop when the door opened and the nationally famous so-called Hitman Anders stepped in with a threatening expression. At least, his expression was considered threatening by at least one of the two customers, who screamed and ran smack into a shelf full of porcelain. The two employees threw their hands into the air to signal their surrender and their preference to stay alive, while the remaining customer, one long-since-retired Lieutenant Henriksson from the eighth company of the former Kronoberg Regiment, armed himself with a broom that cost forty-nine kronor.

Hitman Anders began by wishing “God's peace upon this house,” while his sudden presence caused the exact opposite. Then he placed a large stack of bills on the counter before the two employees, whose
hands were still in the air, and said he wished they would use their arms, and more specifically their four hands, to accept and attend to this money in Jesus's name. By way of conclusion, he wished them a pleasant day and left as suddenly as he had arrived. He might have said, “Hosanna,” as he walked out the door, but the employees were not in agreement about that; one was sure that it had been a sneeze instead. After that he jumped into a white van or a similar vehicle, but only the second of the two employees thought he had seen it happen. The rest of those present were looking at the woman under the pile of broken porcelain. She had started to crawl out, begging “Don't kill me, don't kill me . . .” of the man who, at that point, was no longer on the premises.

The incident in Växjö was over so fast that no one could testify to the presence of any camper van. All four people in the store, however, had recognized Hitman Anders. Lieutenant Henriksson assured anyone who would listen that he would have attacked the assailant if necessary, but the party in question had likely suspected that and beaten a hasty retreat without completing his mission, except for the part about the money he'd left behind.

The other customer, the woman who'd ended up under a shelf of porcelain, could not be questioned by the police or the media. As far as she was concerned, she had survived an attempted homicide by Sweden's foremost mass murderer. Currently in hospital, her whole body trembling, she did manage to say, “Catch that monster!” to the reporter from the
Småland Post
, who then found himself lost and wandering the ward, before being gently turned away by the charge nurse.

The employees with their hands in the air were informed, after a preliminary interview with the police, that they were not to make statements to the media or anyone else. This order came from the publicity office at the Red Cross's headquarters in Stockholm. Anyone who wanted to hear about the two women's experience must instead call the acting press secretary, who was, at the moment,
two hundred and ninety miles away. The press secretary, in turn, was well educated in not saying anything that might bring harm to the Red Cross brand, and since any connection to the man called Hitman Anders risked doing just that, she chose to say nothing. That “nothing” might have sounded something like this:

Question: What have the employees said about their encounter with Hitman Anders? Did he threaten them? Were they afraid?

Answer: In connection with incidents such as this one, our thoughts are with the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who are in need of and receive humanitarian aid from the Red Cross.

In the case of the Salvationist, the witness statements were more plentiful and more detailed. For many years, the railway hub of Hässleholm has been best known for how easy it is to get away from. So everyone—citizens, politicians, and journalists—was extra engaged in the fantastic events that had taken place outside the shopping center.

The witnesses from the pavement outside Systembolaget were very willing to be interviewed by the media and questioned by the police. One female blogger published a post on the theme of how she was likely single-handedly responsible for preventing a massacre just by coming around the corner and frightening away the perpetrators in the nick of time. When she was called in to give a statement, it turned out that the only thing she could say for certain was that Hitman Anders and his henchmen had fled in a red Volvo.

The best witness was the real-life RV fanatic who'd happened to be standing right next to the Salvationist. He swore on his life that a woman had been behind the wheel of the camper, and that it was a 2008 Elnagh Duke 310. All he had to say about the woman behind the wheel was that the model in question included a driver's-side airbag. No matter how much the hungry reporter from the local paper and the slightly more exasperated investigator with the police asked, they could not unearth more about the driver than that she “looked like
women usually look,” and that, for some reason, the wheel rims had not been original.

The chairman of the city council took the initiative and opened a crisis center at the town hall. Any citizens who felt they had been directly or indirectly affected by Hitman Anders's ravages were welcome. The chairman had called in two doctors, one nurse, and a psychologist from his own circle of acquaintances. When not a single citizen showed up, he anticipated a political fiasco, got into his car, and picked up the Salvationist from her home. The Salvationist was in the process of making mashed turnips and didn't want to leave, but in light of all the considerations that must be taken, this could not be taken into consideration.

Thus the media could report that the crisis center had been opened on the chairman's initiative; that the shocked Salvationist was receiving help with returning to a normal life, to the extent possible; and that when it came to information about how many other citizens had sought care and support, the chairman invoked the rule of confidentiality he had just enacted.

The truth—that the Salvationist was not shocked in the least, just hungry—never came to the knowledge of the general public.

O
n day three, things started to turn around. First, the police released a statement saying that the investigation against Johan Andersson had been put to rest. The man who had given a total of just over one million kronor was indeed a known criminal, but he had paid for his crimes and owed no money to the authorities. Furthermore, no third party had professed a claim on the money, and the bills could not be traced to any previous crime. The Red Cross and the Salvation Army could once again take possession of the gifts of 475,000 and 560,000 kronor respectively. It is not illegal even for murderers to give away money left and right.

To be sure, some witness statements mentioned that Johan Andersson had acted threateningly, or had at least
looked
threatening. But in opposition to this, there was the Salvationist's stubborn view, namely that Hitman Anders had beautiful eyes and that a heart of gold must beat inside him. She refused to take his “Rest in peace,” given in farewell, as a threat. The investigator in charge muttered to himself that she was probably right not to and closed the case.

“Rest in peace yourself,” he said to the investigation materials, then stuck them into the archive for closed cases in the basement of the police station.

During those same three days, someone had managed to start a support page in Hitman Anders's name on Facebook. After twenty-
four hours, it had twelve members. After forty-eight, 69,000. And before it was time for lunch on day three, it had surpassed a million.

The general public must have figured out what was going on at around the same time as the tabloids
Expressen
and
Aftonbladet
did. Namely, the following:

A murderer had encountered Jesus and, as a result, tricked the underworld out of money in order to give to those in need. Like Robin Hood, only better, was the sudden opinion of an entire nation (minus a count, a countess, and a few others in the darkest corners of Stockholm and its immediate surroundings).
A miracle of God!
was the opinion of a number of the religiously inclined, enough to lead to the creation of a corresponding Facebook movement with Biblical overtones.

And, furthermore, during a live television gala broadcast, Her Majesty the Queen happened to say, “I think the man with the terrible nickname has shown courage, strength, and generosity. I hope that in his future endeavors he spares an extra thought for vulnerable children.”

“I can't believe this is happening,” said the receptionist, when the priest told him that the wife of the head of state had indirectly asked Hitman Anders to send half a million kronor to Save the Children or her own World Childhood Foundation.

“Would you look at that?” said Hitman Anders to the priest. “To think I went and got royally addressed. Well, as we know, the ways of the Lord are unfathom—What was it again?”

“—able,” said the priest. “Now get into the camper, you two. We're leaving.”

“Where are we going?” asked the receptionist.

“No idea,” said the priest.

“Maybe we'd be welcome in the palace,” Hitman Anders mused. “I'm sure they have plenty of free rooms.”