Easy Money (30 page)

They met up in the Sollentuna Mall. Jorge felt at home there. Indoor streets, the usual stores: H&M, the Systembolaget liquor store, B&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 Malmvägen, 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 Långholmen. Foot fixed the fall: flourishing feat. Almost lost it when he realized Långholmen 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 Ringvägen.

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.

Abdulkarim and Fahdi arrived in London two days after JW.

Picking up the gun was the first thing they did after landing. Cabbed it to Euston Square, where a black guy waited by the newspaper stand at the station. They handed over an envelope with the agreed-upon sum. The guy counted quickly and nodded. Then gave them a slip of paper.

Abdulkarim refused to be ripped off, made sure the guy didn’t vaporize, held on to him. If there was no weapon, the guy’d have to take the hit.

The storage boxes had combination locks. The guy showed them to the correct box right away. The combination on the slip of paper worked. In the box was a sports bag. Fahdi took hold of the bag and reached his hand in. Copped a feel. Smiled broadly.

JW took them sightseeing with a hired tour guide for the rest of the day. Abdulkarim was in rapture, hadn’t been abroad since he’d come to Sweden as a boy in 1985.

They saw the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, London Dungeon, took a spin in the London Eye. Abdulkarim’s favorite: London Dungeon, the horror museum with distorted wax dolls, guillotines, garrote irons, gallows.

The guide was a middle-aged Swedish man who’d lived in London for seventeen years. Was used to teens on language-course trips and traveling groups from middle Svenland. The guide couldn’t really get a grip on his customers that day, maybe thought they were nice, normal guys. Instead, Abdulkarim and Fahdi poured on the questions. “Where’s the closest strip club?” “Any idea about the price of snow?” “You gonna help us buy cheap ganja?”

Nervous drops gleamed on the guide’s brow. He was probably sweating bullets.

JW grinned.

By the end of the day, the guide appeared visibly shaken. Shifty-eyed, probably scared a bobby’d pop around the next corner and collar him. They thanked him and gave a fat tip.

Before they parted ways, Abdulkarim said, “We’re planning on going to Hothouse Inn tonight. Wanna come?”

The Hothouse Inn: JW’d scored tix. It was one of Soho’s glammest strip joints.

The dopest part: The geezer guide said yes.

Abdulkarim’s grimaced. “Oh my. I was just joking. We definitely weren’t gonna go there. That’s dirty. You do stuff like that?”

The guide: like a Jersey tomato. The red lights on the streets paled in comparison. Turned and hurried off.

They died laughing.

Day two. JW, Abdulkarim, and Fahdi invaded the shopping districts.

London, the Holy Land of luxury department stores: Selfridges, Harrods. But best of all: Harvey Nichols.

They’d booked a limo for the whole day.

JW’d moved to Abdulkarim’s hotel the previous day, when Abdulkarim deemed it safe. Fahdi’d moved somewhat later the same day.

They began with a hotel brunch, model XL: sausages, bacon, spareribs, chicken clubs, fried potatoes, pancakes with syrup, seven kinds of bread, granola, Kellogg’s cereal, scrambled eggs, three kinds of fresh-squeezed juice, marmalade, Marmite, Vegemite, tons of cheeses—Stilton, cheddar, Brie—jam, Nutella, ice cream, fruit salad. No end to it.

They binged. Fahdi loved the scrambled eggs, loaded up two plates. The middle-aged women one table over stared. Abdulkarim ordered new fresh-squeezed juice four times. JW was ashamed, and still not. He straightened his cuff links and looked toward their neighbors at the next table. Winked.

Enjoyed it somehow.

The limo picked them up at one.

Abdulkarim was coasting, boasting about how much they were going to make on the blow Jorge’d scored through that Brazilian. Blabbered on about all they were going to do in London. All the
bea-ches
were going to get a piece of Abdulkarim. All the knuckleheads were going to get a taste of Fahdi.

Abdulkarim hadn’t talked about anything else the night before, couldn’t let it drop: Jorge’s infamous flight from the Västerbron bridge. JW was impressed. Seven pounds of coke was theirs. Exactly what they needed—quantity.

They stopped outside Selfridges. Abdulkarim opened the door and looked out. Roared in crappy English, “Get us outta here. This place don’t look fancy enough.”

JW glanced at Fahdi and laughed. Had Abdulkarim sucked a nose before breakfast?

The driver remained impassive. Abdulkarim’s behavior was probably nothing compared to the really rich and famous people he’d chauffeured around.

They drove on. The sidewalks were crammed and the streets teeming with cars. Classic double-deckers squeezed past, pulled up to bus stops.

The limo stopped outside Harvey Nichols.

They walked into the department store and quickly found the men’s section. It was gigantic. For JW, the shopping freak, the luxury leech, this was one of life’s happier moments.

He drooled, dug, danced the consumer dance. Merch Mecca. Brand Bethlehem: Dior, Alexandre of London, Fendi, Giuseppe Zanotti, Canali, Hugo Boss, Cerruti 1881, Ralph Lauren, Comme des Garçons, Costume National, Dolce & Gabbana, Duffer of St. George, Yves Saint Laurent, Dunhill, Calvin Klein, Armani, Givenchy, Energie, Evisu, Gianfranco Ferre, Versace, Gucci, Guerlain, Helmut Lang, Hermès, Iceberg, Issey Miyake, J. Lindeberg, Christian Lacroix, Jean Paul Gaultier, C. P. Company, John Galliano, John Smedley, Kenzo, Lacoste, Marc Jacobs, Dries Van Noten, Martin Margiela, Miu Miu, Nicole Farhi, Oscar de la Renta, Paul Smith, Punk Royal, Ermenegildo Zegna, Roberto Cavalli, Jil Sander, Burberry, Tod’s, Tommy Hilfiger, Trussardi, Valentino, Yohji Yamamoto.

It was all there.

Abdulkarim had a sales rep guide him around the store and drove around with his own little shopping cart. He plucked suits, shirts, shoes, and sweaters off the racks.

JW made the rounds by himself. Chose a club blazer by Alexandre of Savile Row, a pair of Helmut Lang jeans, two shirts—one from Paul Smith and one Prada—and a Gucci belt. Total damage: one thousand pounds.

Fahdi looked lost. He was most comfortable in a simple leather jacket and blue jeans and so he bought a pair of Hilfiger jeans and a leather jacket from Gucci. Price of the leather jacket alone: three thousand pounds. Gucci—all luxury lovers’ favorite feature.

JW thought about how much easier it all would be when he had clean fleece. The ability to use proper credit cards: a dream on the British horizon. The feeling he longed for: to be able to toss an American Express platinum card on the counter.

They got help lugging all the bags out to the limousine. The salesclerks seemed used to this kind of thing. London was the place for the disgustingly rich.

The limo kept driving along Sloane Street, the flagship stores’ mainline: Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Chanel, Hermès in a row.

JW’s eyes were glued to the logos’ luring lines. After a minute or so, Abdulkarim started yelling.

They got out.

Abdulkarim ran toward the Louis Vuitton store. JW saw his billowing pants and too-short jacket over his blazer and thought, Dressing like that ought to be a criminal offense.

At first the bouncer at the boutique looked skeptically at Abdulkarim—a swarthy maniac? Then he saw the limo. Waved him in.

They spent another hour and a half pillaging the street.

JW’s final count was four thousand pounds, not including what he’d dropped at Harvey Nichols. Trophies to show the boyz back home: a leather briefcase from Gucci, a coat from Miu Miu, a shirt from Burberry. Not bad.

A thought flitted through his head: Is this Life, or is this a sham? JW felt elated, almost ecstatic. Still, he couldn’t help but connect it to how Camilla must’ve felt when she’d been given a ride in the man from Belgrade’s yellow Ferrari. How similar were she and JW?

They had lunch at Wagamama, at the end of Sloane Street, a trendy Asian restaurant chain with minimalistic interiors. Abdulkarim complained that too many dishes contained pork.

“Tomorrow night, we gonna celebrate,” he said, “by eating at some halal place.”

Fahdi looked surprised. “What’re we celebrating?”

Abdulkarim grinned. “Buddy, tomorrow we gonna meet the guys we came here to meet. Tomorrow we gonna know if we gonna be millionaires.”