The Demon of Dakar - Kjell Eriksson [51]
What he lacked in physique and ability, he made up for in a never-wavering optimism and a self-confidence that unfortunately often led him astray.
At the age of seventeen he embarked on a drug addiction, and one year later he was charged by the Uppsala courts with burglary and the assault of a civil servant. He was found guilty of the burglary but the second accusation was dismissed by the court. It was regarded as unlikely that Konrad had the capacity to offer any significant resistance.
That was the first in a long series of sentences. Most of them concerned drugs and crimes related to his drug habit, primarily fraud. He was a scoundrel, well known to the police and people in the blocks around the central station.
During his last prison term Konrad had participated in an ambitious program to kick his drug habit, and when he was released he had against all expectations kicked his drug dependence and was provided with a small apartment in Tunabackar, on the same street where he had grown up.
Konrad Rosenberg was forty-six years old when he was granted early retirement. He used to sit on Torbjörn Square, down a beer or two, and converse with other lushes or other retirees who were happy to have someone to talk to. Many of them had been acquainted with Konrad’s father and loved to tell the usual stories about legendary explosions.
Sometimes he used the shuttle service to go downtown, shoplift in a couple of stores, selling the goods quickly below market value and returning home with a green bag of alcohol.
Life was simple for Konrad. He was still optimistically cheerful and was generally regarded as a little slow but harmless, since he had never committed any violent crimes.
One day, things looked up for Konrad Rosenberg. He appeared, in new clothes, at a bank branch on Torbjörn Square, where he opened an account and deposited fifty-six thousand kronor. The clerk, who recognized him from the park benches, could not conceal his surprise.
“It is an inheritance,” Konrad explained somberly.
“My condolences,” the clerk said.
“It is all right,” Konrad said. “It’s just a distant aunt who popped off.”
After that, smaller amounts flowed into the account, a couple of thousand from time to time, on a few occasions a five-digit amount. A couple of years after the initial deposit, the sum had grown fivefold.
The bank clerk reminded Konrad of the possibility of a more favorable retirement savings account option that, once he had received an explanatory overview, Konrad politely declined.
“The devil only knows how long one has to live. One could kick the bucket at any moment.”
One day he parked a Mercedes on the street, circled the car a few times, opened and locked the doors with a remote control system, unlocked the door, sat down in the car, only to step out again immediately, lock it, walk some distance away and turn around and regard this miracle, before he finally ducked in through the front doors of the building.
Konrad Rosenberg, as “Sture with the hat” had put it to Berglund, was in the money.
But fortune is a curse. From his relatively problem-free existence on the square, Konrad had now been plunged into a whirlwind of new acquaintances who, like the male butterfly that can detect a female at one kilometer’s distance, appeared to be drawn to the smell of money that emanated from him.
At first he was flattered, liked to buy rounds for his new friends and was seen more often in public. Then suddenly everything ground to a halt. Konrad Rosenberg became sullen and unwilling to play along. No more small loans, no restaurant meals, visitors were turned away at the door.
When spring came, he was again on the park bench in the square. The bank account, which had almost been emptied, was again being filled at a steady and secure rate.
It was the summerhouse that was the source of Konrad Rosenberg’s unexpected advancement.
In the sixties, the explosions expert Rosenberg had bought a piece of land from a local farmer about ten kilometers east of the town. On the stony property, which he