The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

Bolt’s comrade Bucket listens to the police press conference. He’s totally confused about what has happened. Jonasson reveals that Bucket’s confusion comes naturally, since he’s not bright. He once started his own gang, Violence, which his girlfriend misspelled on the gang’s jackets as “Violins.” Reacting angrily to the resulting confusion, Bucket’s stupid mistakes landed him in jail, where he met Pike. Pike has now ordered him to find Bolt, Allan, and the suitcase of money.

The police dog that tracked Allan to the bus station shows up at the steel factory and indicates that a dead body had been on the trolley. Aronsson knows that the corpse is not Allan or Julius. He assumes that it’s Bolt, though he has no idea where the body is.

Allan’s crew hears a trumpet from the barn. The Beauty identifies it as coming from Sonya, a circus elephant (presumed drowned in a lake) that showed up on The Beauty’s acreage, Lake Farm. Benny, who has veterinarian training, says that he can tell from the sound that something is wrong with Sonya, which impresses The Beauty. A twig is wedged beneath the elephant’s toenail. Benny removes it and tells The Beauty that they need antibiotics. After dark, she leads him to a vet clinic where she once worked. They hack the vet’s computer and order antibiotics. A passerby sees them in the clinic’s parking lot.

The following morning, The Beauty returns from the grocery store, having seen the news story naming the men as part of a criminal enterprise. She demands to know the whole story. The men tell her what has happened and offer her an equal share of the money. The author writes:

The Beauty found it just as hard as Benny had to digest the part about the corpse, but she was impressed with Allan for climbing out of the window and just disappearing from his earlier life. I should have done the same thing after 14 days with that a****** I married” (97)

The Beauty is now part of Allan’s crew.

Aronsson interviews the woman who saw the men riding in the Mercedes and realizes that he shouldn’t have dismissed her tip. However, he can’t make a connection between the men or grasp where they might have gone. Bucket’s younger brother, meanwhile, reports to Bucket that he saw Allan in Rottne in the parking lot of a vet clinic in the middle of the night.

The news of the missing centenarian has spread across Sweden, so The Beauty advises the men to stay out of sight. Meanwhile, she buys a school bus with a special compartment that they can modify to house Sonya.

Allan arrives in the US on a Spanish ship the day the Nazi’s invade Poland. The US impounds the ship and releases all the sailors except Allan, whose presence totally confuses them. He ends up in the custody of US immigration officers for four years. When one official hears that the government needs explosive experts, he sends Allan to Los Alamos, New Mexico. There, Allan becomes a favorite of the physicists who are working on a nuclear weapon. Allan figures out how to control the bomb’s detonation, something he reveals casually as he serves coffee to the scientists. At that moment, Vice President Harry Truman enters the room. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist in charge, tells Truman that Allan has figured out how to make the bomb explode. Truman and Allan hit it off, and the two enjoy a celebratory meal. During their meal, a messenger appears and tells Truman that President Roosevelt has died.

Bucket, who’s in Rottne to watch for signs of Allan, spies The Beauty when she’s buying groceries. He calls Pike, who tells him to get her license number and tail her but not to let her know he is following. Bucket uses Pike’s personal phone rather than the “burner” phone set up for secret conversations. The police have figured out—since witnesses saw Bolt’s Never Again jacket—that Pike’s gang is involved. Authorities tap Pike’s phone and realize that he thinks Allan is in Rottne. Aronsson reports these developments to Prosecutor Ranelid, who tells him not to let Pike escape.

Bucket, who has relayed the location information to Pike, follows The Beauty back to Lake Farm. Instead of following his orders and waiting, he drives up to the farmhouse and narrowly misses hitting Allan, who’s playing with Sonya. Bucket gets out of his car with a pistol and demands the missing suitcase. Allan tricks Bucket into stepping backward into a pile of elephant dung. Bucket falls backward. Allan tells Sonya to sit, and Sonya, who has her back to Bucket, sits on him. When Pike doesn’t hear back from Bucket, he gets into his BMW and heads for Rottne.

Several weeks after Roosevelt’s death, Truman calls Allan and asks if he’ll come to Washington to help Truman with an issue. Once in Truman’s presence, Allan learns that Soong Mei-ling, the wife of Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek, says that Roosevelt promised her he’d help fight the communists, led by Mao Zedong:

“—I should have guessed that this was about politics, said Allan.

—It's pretty hard to avoid that if you are the president, said Harry Truman” (121).

Truman asks Allan to go to China with Soong Mei-ling and destroy bridges as he did in the Spanish Civil War. Allan agrees. Soong Mei-ling treats him in such a condescending manner, however, that Allan almost changes his mind. Once she begins to speak to him respectfully, he agrees to go to China. Allan dislikes the boat trip across the Pacific Ocean because the only alcohol available is “green, banana liquor” (125) and because he must listen to Soong Mei-ling’s political views every night at supper.

Once the boat arrives in Shanghai, Soong Mei-ling departs and the boat proceeds up the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) with Allan and 20 men from Soong Mei-ling’s personal guard. The men are cruel and immoral. Although their actual destination is far upriver, they insist on stopping at every city along the way to engage in drunken, licentious behavior. They take custody of Jiang Qing, the wife of Mao Zedong, whom they intend to violate and kill, but then realize that she’s more valuable to them alive. Allan realizes that their sloth has cost them the opportunity to slow the progress of the communists. He plots successfully—with the help of the cook, Ah Ming—to free Jiang Qing and return her to the communists.

While Jiang Qing and Ah Ming intend to catch up with Mao, Allan tells them he wants to return to Sweden. Since no automated transportation is available, he realizes that he must walk all the way from western China. Along the way, Allan acquires traveling companions. The first joins him when he buys a camel. Jonasson writes, “Allan and the camel-seller finally came to an agreement, but not until the seller had been forced to accept that Allan was not going to take his daughter as part of the purchase” (133). Second, he encounters three young Iranian men, also on camelback, whose intent is to bring communism to Iran. The group makes the arduous, dangerous trek across the Himalayan Mountains. When they arrive at the Iranian border, guards shoot the Iranians—each of whom has a copy of the Communist Manifesto—and take Allan into custody.

After Sonya flattens Bucket, the others put his body beneath the backseat of his Mustang. They decide to take the car somewhere distant and set it afire. When Benny and Julius stop at a gas station, however, Bucket’s younger brother—not knowing whose vehicle it is or that his deceased brother is under the backseat—steals the car. Latvians from Riga eventually take the car and, discovering the body inside, pay a drunk to drive it to the junkyard to be crushed.

Allan’s crew realizes that the time has come for them to leave Lake Farm. They load the school bus and drive away just as Pike arrives. He turns around and follows them. Not far behind Pike is Aronsson, who has tailed him all morning. While Pike drives after the school bus, Aronsson investigates the farm. He discovers Bucket’s gun and the registration for The Beauty’s bus. On the bus, the crew discusses whether Benny’s brother, Bosse, will accept them, since the brothers are estranged. Pike’s BMW passes the bus, then turns sideways in the road to block them. However, because of the elephant’s weight, the bus requires extra stopping distance, so it crashes into the BMW and destroys it. They realize that the driver is an accomplice of Bolt and Bucket and assume that he’s dead—until they hear him trying to breathe.

Aronsson knows that he can’t catch up to the BMW but decides to follow the road anyway. He finds the demolished car and sees signs that it was rammed by a large yellow vehicle. The amount of blood and the degree of destruction convince Aronsson that Pike is dead, though the body is missing.