Easy Money

37

They met up in the Sollentuna Mall. Jorge felt at home there. Indoor streets, the usual stores: H amp;M, the Systembolaget liquor store, B amp;R Toys, Intersport, Duka, Lindex, Teknikmagasinet. And the ICA supermarket. Jorge remembered how the food he’d bought there’d fallen to the ground when he was jumped by the Yugos. Then he remembered all the times he’d shoplifted there as a kid.

Jorge’s fear of being recognized returned. It’d happened once three weeks ago, right here in Sollentuna. The danger zone for Jorge, highest density of people who recognized him. That time, he’d been there to meet a guy who dealt for him. In the stairwell of the apartment building on Malmvagen, a woman’d walked past who knew Jorge’s mom. She’d tried to joke, yelled at him in Chilean slang: “Jorgelito. You been tanning in Africa?” He’d ignored her. Kept walking out of the building, with his panicked heart beating faster than a drum ’n’ bass rhythm.

Told himself, It’s cool. I’m way down on the 5–0’s lists by now. I’ve changed my appearance. I’m a different guy. She was the first one in months who’d actually recognized him.

They each bought a Coca-Cola at a bodega: Jorge, the prostitute from the brothel in Hallonbergen, and her sidekick, a dude Jorge hadn’t seen before.

The dude: an enormous Sven-six eight, at least. His chest was three feet across and there was no difference between the width of his neck and his head. Doubtful if the guy could walk without his thighs rubbing, friction between Black Angus beef shanks.

“This is Micke,” the girl said.

Jorge wondered if the giant was her boyfriend or her pimp. Didn’t dare ask. He was ashamed that he’d paid her for sex a week ago. The real question: Was he ashamed ’cause it was embarrassing or ’cause it was wrong?

Jorge raised an eyebrow. Signal to the chick: What’s with the guy?

The girl understood. Said, “Chill. He just wanna come along. See nothing happen to me.”

“Is he gonna listen to everything we’re saying, or what? Can’t have that.”

The dude answered with a shriller voice than expected. “Relax, twiggy. I’ll just walk a few feet behind you.”

Shady as hell. Why’d she brought this guy? J-boy didn’t take any risks. J-boy knew what could happen when you let meatheads out of your sight. He said, “You can keep close, but you gotta walk in front. So I can see you.”

The giant stared him down. Cracked his knuckles. Jorge ignored him. Said, “If she wants the cash, you’ll do what I say.”

The chick okayed it.

They walked out of the mall. Through the sliding doors. Toward the park. In silence. The giant always twenty or so feet ahead.

Jorge: happiest dealer in town. Tricked the popo grande. Clearly, cockiest cocaine coup ever. Plucked that NK bag with blow right from under their snouts. Booked it-pigs were wheezy geezers-swung himself down from the bridge, and jumped. Landed in the snow on Langholmen. Foot fixed the fall: flourishing feat. Almost lost it when he realized Langholmen was an island. Then he thought, Sweden is a wonderful country. There’s winter; there’s ice. He made his way to the south side of the island, toward Hornstull. Ran over the ice. It was thin, but it bore him. He ran between the houses lining the water on Bergsunds Strand. Came out on the other side, by Tantolunden. All clear. He hailed a cab at Ringvagen.

The second-best thing about the whole deal: They might have a hard time pinning anything on Mehmed. Hopefully, they couldn’t prove that he’d been in possession of cocaine. On the other hand, Big Brother usually managed to prove what Big Brother wanted to prove. They’d been caught with their pants down, claro. Usually, they switched out the cocaine for something else, kept the authentic gear as evidence. But this time, they’d let Mehmed drive off with the real stuff. Probable reason: They knew that someone was gonna test the shit and they wanted to get at the true bad boys, the higher-ups. Losers-J-boy wasn’t an easy catch.

The only piss on his parade: How’d it gone down?

The most probable answer was that Silvia, the courier, had fucked it up. Maybe she’d answered all wrong in customs. Maybe there’d been dogs. Maybe-terrible thought-someone’d tipped them off.

He didn’t give a fuck right now. The blow was his/Abdulkarim’s. At least three million kronor gross on the street. Stockholm’s boroughs were theirs for the taking.

Jorge and the chick were approaching the wooded area. The giant stayed up front. The snow lay thick, beautifully white. The path was well sanded. Jorge, with slippery sneakers on his feet, was grateful for the park service’s diligence.

She turned to him, made it clear she was ready to talk.

“Good that you came,” he said.

“It cost.”

“Of course. What we agreed on.”

“Yes. Where I start?”

“Why don’t you start by telling me your name?”

“Call me Nadja. What I say?”

“Start from the beginning. How’d you get here?”

She didn’t gush, told her tale in few words. Jorge thought, She’s pretty. That special something remains: She was playing hard-boiled, while at the same time there was something she wanted to say. He could tell. She was easily persuaded. Too eager. The first time he’d met her in the apartment brothel, she’d told him that Mr. R. spread a Hugo Boss scent. Jorge’d checked it out with people who knew. It was correct. Radovan loved Hugo Boss. Everything Boss-suits, shirts, coats. Aftershave.

How could she know Rado smelled like Hugo Boss? Only two answers. Either someone’d told her, but that was improbable. Or she’d met him up close.

Possibility number two made her into Jorge’s most interesting lead yet.

There was something she wanted to say. He was impressed by her courage.

She told him how she’d come to Sweden from Bosnia-Herzegovina six years ago. Eighteen years old. Raped four times by Serbian militia during her early teens. Applied for asylum here. Lived in a refugee camp outside Gnesta for two years. Thought she’d known what the word bureaucracy meant from her home country. Now she really knew what it meant. Life sucked. She took Swedish for Immigrants classes two hours every day. She was talented. Learned quickly. Other than that, she spent her days sprawled on a bed. Watched shopping shows and matinee movies in a Swedish she didn’t yet understand. Once tried to go shopping on her own in Stockholm: her two thousand kronor a month-one thousand after she’d sent money home to her family in Sarajevo-wasn’t enough for zilch. Never did that again. Stayed in her room. Slept, watched TV, listened to the radio. Near the edge of apathy. Thought only money could save her. One night, a neighbor on her hall at the camp asked if she wanted to smoke up. The feeling: the only nice experience she’d had since the time before the Bosnian catastrophe. It continued like that: They gathered in the neighbor’s room a couple of times a week. Just sat. Smoked. Relaxed. The downside: The need for cash flow became desperate. She stopped sending money home. Hardly helped. Her debt grew. The solution came through the same neighbor, who did it herself-let some guy come to her room once a week or so, gave him a hand job, sometimes sucked a little. Made a couple hundred kronor. Later that night, they gathered in the neighbor’s room again. Built bigger roaches. Took deeper hits. Forgot all the shit.

It worked for a few months. Then other men showed up-ex-Yugoslavs, Serbs. She didn’t recognize their faces. But she did recognize their style. Arkan’s boys. Told her and the neighbor what to do, when to do it, what to charge.

The number of customers increased. The money rolled in.

She wasn’t granted asylum. The choice: stay illegally or go back to her war-ravaged home and the rape memories. She chose to stay. Sank deeper into the pimps’ system.

They let her live together with other girls in a heavily guarded apartment. Sometimes the guys came there. Sometimes they were driven to other places. They thought she had a talent for more than the Swedish language, so they let her do the so-called luxury jobs: go along to restaurants and just look pretty. Maybe be picked up by some guy who’d buy her drinks. Maybe go to parties in huge houses in a miniskirt and act like a waitress. Old guys who’d grope/feel her up, pull her into adjoining rooms. Johns who never paid directly to her.

And every night when she came home, she’d roll a joint. Take some Sobril. Sometimes she topped the roach with aimies-in junkie lingo: dusting.

The Serbian pimps provided the drugs. Made sure they stayed calm.

After six months, she went into withdrawal if she didn’t get her daily dose of weed or amphetamine.

Jorge asked few follow-up questions. Let her tell the story at her own pace. Felt like a head doctor. Like with Paola, who’d always listened to him. But it wasn’t just that; he felt something for Nadja, too.

It hit him what it was: empathy. And something more: a kind of tenderness.

It wasn’t till now that they’d gotten to the interesting stuff. The giant looked back at them every now and then. Made sure they were still there. That the distance hadn’t gotten too big. Jorge guessed that they never let the whores out of their grip.

Jorge looked at Nadja. “Could you tell me some more details about the luxury jobs?”

“For, like, two year. Many time, they first drive us to makeup place. Get fix up. Choose what we wear. Sometime expensive: silk, satin skirt. High heels in nicest leather. A makeup girl learn me to walk in shoes like that. No wobble. They learn us what we talk about, what we do with old guys.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere. In big houses, nice suburb, I think. Restaurant by Stureplan. Other part of town. Four, five time I go with old man for weekend. Swedish girls there, too.”

Jorge sharpened his interview technique. Wanted to ask the right questions. Not push her too far. She had to keep talking. He wanted her to tell him, for her sake.

“How do you get the privilege of going to one of those parties?”

“What you mean?”

“I mean, if I wanted to go to one of those house parties. How would I do that?”

“I not do luxury job anymore. I not young and pretty enough. I almost over. Too much fucking amphetamine. You want to go to party, you need much money. Girls there not cheap.” A fake smile.

“But if I still want to. Who do I talk to?”

“There are many. You ask about Nenad. Talk to him.”

“I can’t do that. Are there others? Who would organize those nicer parties?”

“Swedes. Upper-class.”

“You got any names?”

“Try Jonas or Karl. They use to boss makeup girls.”

“You know what their last names were?”

“No. Swedish last names hard. They never tell us. But nickname.”

“They had nicknames?”

“Yes. Jonas, ‘Jonte.’ ‘Karl,’ called sort of like ‘Giant Karl.’”

“Who else was involved?”

“Talk to Mr. R. if you dare.”

“He was there? Does your boyfriend know you’ve been with him?”

She stopped. “How you know?”

Jorge: Sherlock fuckin’ Holmes. “I just know.”

They kept walking. Back toward the mall.

“Micke not my boyfriend. He Nenad’s eye on me. Mr. R.’s eye. He not know who I be with. Why he got to know?”

“Why does he let you talk to me like this?”

“Micke not like others. He hate Mr. R. Micke promise help me out of the shit.”

“Why?”

“I told you: He hate R. Only work for money. Been beat up before.”

“What’re you talkin’ about?”

“Micke good man. Got foot crushed by a Serb swine who work for Mr. R. At gym. Mrado drop weightiest weight on foot. Then Serb just hit him down, no reason. For him, no big deal. That why Micke can work for Nenad instead. You understand. Micke is big. Still. You understand the men you ask about?”

Jorge understood.

The hate.

The drive.

The hunt.