Phantom (17 page)

I
N FACT IT
did take only five minutes to pack and check out of Hotel Leon.

“There’s a small discount for customers who pay cash,” said the boy behind the counter. Not everything was new.

Harry flicked through his wallet. Hong Kong dollars, yuan, U.S. dollars, euros. His cell phone rang. Harry lifted it to his ear while fanning out the notes and offering them to the boy.

“Speak.”

“It’s me. What are you doing?”

Shit. He had planned to wait and phone her from the airport. Make it as simple and brutal as possible. A quick wrench.

“I’m checking out. Can I call you back in a couple of minutes?”

“I just wanted to say that Oleg has contacted his lawyer. Erm … Hans Christian, that is.”

“Norwegian kroner,” said the boy.

“Oleg says he wants to meet you, Harry.”

“Hell!”

“Sorry? Harry, are you there?”

“Do you take Visa?”

“Cheaper for you to go to an ATM and withdraw cash.”

“Meet me?”

“That’s what he says. As soon as possible.”

“That’s not possible, Rakel.”

“Why not?”

“Because—”

“There’s an ATM only a hundred yards down Tollbugata.”

“Because?”

“Take my card, OK?”

“Harry?”

“First of all, it’s not possible, Rakel. He’s not allowed visitors, and I won’t get around that a second time.”

“And second of all?”

“I don’t see the point, Rakel. I’ve read the documents. I …”

“You what?”

“I think he shot Gusto Hanssen, Rakel.”

“We don’t take Visa. Do you have anything else? MasterCard, American Express?”

“No! Rakel?”

“Then let’s say dollars and euros. The exchange rate’s not very favorable, but it’s better than the card.”

“Rakel? Rakel? Shit!”

“Something the matter, Herr Hole?”

“She hung up. Is this enough?”

I stood on Skippergata watching the rain bucket down. The winter had never managed to get a grip, and there had been a lot of rain instead. But it didn’t dampen demand. Oleg, Irene and I turned over more in one day than I’d done in a whole week for Odin and Tutu. I earned roughly six thousand a day. I’d counted all the Arsenal shirts. The old man must have been making more than two million kroner a week, easy
.

Every night, before we settled up with Andrey, Oleg and I carefully added up the take and made it tally with the goods. There was never so much as a krone missing. It wouldn’t have been worth it
.

And I could trust Oleg one hundred percent. Either he didn’t have the imagination to think of stealing or he didn’t understand the concept. Or maybe his head and his heart were too full of Irene. It was almost ridiculous to see how he wagged his tail when she was around. And how utterly blind she was to his adoration. Because Irene could see only one thing
.

Me
.

It didn’t bother me or puff me up—that was just how it was and always had been
.

I knew her so well, knew exactly how I could make her little pure heart thump, her sweet mouth smile and—if that was what I wanted—her blue eyes fill with big tears. I could have let her go, opened the door and said, You’re free. But I’m a thief, and thieves don’t give away anything they can convert into cash. Irene belonged to me, but two million a week belonged to the old man
.

It’s funny how six thousand a day grows legs when you take crystal meth like ice cubes in your drinks and wear clothes that aren’t from Cubus. That was why I was still crashing in the rehearsal room with Irene, who slept on a mattress behind the drums. But she was managing, didn’t touch so much as a spiked cigarette, ate veggie shit and had opened a fricking bank account. Oleg was living with his mother, so he must have been rolling in money. He’d cleaned himself up, was doing some studying and had even begun to skate at Valle Hovin
.

While I was standing on Skippergata doing mental math I saw a figure
coming toward me in the pouring rain. Glasses misted up, thin hair plastered to his skull, wearing the type of all-weather jacket your fat, ugly girlfriend bought you both for Christmas. Well, either the girlfriend was ugly or she didn’t exist. I could see that from his limp. There’s probably a PC word for it. I call it a clubfoot, but then I say “spastic” and “Negro,” too
.

He stopped in front of me
.

Now the thing is, I was never surprised anymore by the kind of people who bought heroin, but this man definitely wasn’t in the usual category
.

“How much—”

“Three hundred fifty for a quarter.”

“—would you pay for a gram of heroin?”

“Pay? We sell, fuckwit.”

“I know. Just doing a bit of research.”

I looked at him. A journalist? A social worker? Or maybe a politician? While I was working for Odin and Tutu a bozo like that came over and said he was on the council, some committee called RUNO, and asked me very politely whether I would go to a meeting about “Drugs and Youth.” They wanted to hear “voices from the street.” I showed up for a laugh and listened to them drone on about European Cities Against Drugs and a big international plan for a drug-free Europe. I was given a soda and a cookie and laughed until I cried. But the broad leading the meeting was this MILF, a peroxide blonde with features like a man, huge jugs and the voice of a drill sergeant. For a second I wondered whether she’d had more than her tits done. After the meeting she came over to me, said she was secretary to the Councilwoman for Social Services and that she would like to talk more, could we meet at her place if I had “the opportunity” one day. She was a MILF without the M, it turned out. Lived alone on a farm, was wearing tight riding breeches when she opened the door and wanted “it” to take place in a stable. Didn’t bother me if she’d really had her dick done. They had cleaned up nicely and installed a pair of milkers that bounced up a storm. But there’s something weird about screwing a woman who howls like a fighter jet when you’re six feet away from a bunch of horses, who are watching you with a semi-interested stare. Afterward I had to pick straw from between my ass, and I asked her if she could lend me a thousand kroner. We kept meeting until I started to earn six thousand a day, and between fucks she had time to explain that a secretary did not sit writing letters for her councilwoman but dealt with practical politics. Even if she was a peon right now she was the person who made things
happen. And when the right people understood that, it would be her turn to be a councilwoman. What I learned from her City Hall talk was that all politicians—high or low—wanted the same two things: power and sex. In that order. Whispering “cabinet minister” in her ear at the same time as getting two fingers up could make her squirt all the way to the pigsty. I’m not kidding. And in the face of the clubfooted guy in front of me I could read some of the same sick, intense longings
.

“Fuck off.”

“Who’s your boss? I want to talk to him.”

Take me to your leader? The guy was either nuts or plain stupid
.

“Fuck off.”

The guy didn’t budge, but just stood there and pulled something from the pocket of his all-weather jacket. A plastic bag of white powder—maybe half a gram
.

“This is a sample. Take it to your boss. The price is eight hundred kroner a gram. Careful with the dosage—divide this into ten. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow, same time.”

The man passed me the bag, turned and limped down the street
.

Normally I would have chucked the bag into the nearest trash can. I couldn’t even sell the shit myself; I had to maintain my reputation. But there was something about the gleam in the madman’s eye. Like he knew something. So, when the workday was over and we’d settled up with Andrey, I went with Oleg and Irene to Heroin Park. We asked if anyone there felt like being a test pilot. I’d done this before with Tutu. If there were new goods in town you went to where the most desperate junkies hung out, the ones willing to test anything as long as it was free, who didn’t care if it killed them because death was around the corner anyway
.

Four volunteered, but said they wanted an eighth of real heroin on top. I said no and was left with three. I doled out the goods
.

“Not enough!” shouted one of the junkies with the diction of a stroke patient. I told him to shut up if he wanted dessert
.

Irene, Oleg and I sat watching as they searched for veins between scabs and injected themselves with surprisingly efficient movements
.

“Oh, Jesus,” one of them groaned
.

“Fffff …” another stuttered
.

Then it went still. Total silence. It was like sending a rocket into space and losing all contact. But I already knew, could see the ecstasy in their eyes before they disappeared: Houston, we have no problem. When they landed back on earth it was dark. The trip had lasted for more than five hours, double the length of a normal heroin trip. The
test panel was unanimous. They had never experienced anything with such a kick. They wanted more, the rest of the bag, now, please, and staggered toward us like the zombies in
Thriller.
We burst out laughing and ran away
.

Sitting on my mattress in the rehearsal room half an hour later, I did some thinking. A junkie usually uses a quarter gram of street heroin per shot, but Oslo’s most hardened junkies had just gotten as high as fricking virgins on a quarter of that! The guy had given me pure junk. But what was it? It looked and smelled like heroin, had the consistency of heroin, but to trip out for five hours on such a small dose? Whatever it was, I knew I was sitting on a gold mine. Eight hundred kroner per gram, which could be diluted three times and sold for fourteen hundred. Fifty grams a day. Thirty thousand straight into your pocket. Into mine. Into Oleg’s and Irene’s
.

I raised the business proposition with them. Explained the figures
.

They looked at each other. They weren’t as enthusiastic as I expected
.

“But Dubai …” Oleg said
.

I lied and told them there was no danger as long as we didn’t trick the old man. First, we would go and say we were stopping, that we’d found Jesus or some other bullshit. Then wait a little while before starting up on our own in a small way
.

They looked at each other again. And I suddenly realized there was something going on, something I hadn’t picked up on before
.

“It’s just that …” Oleg said, his eyes struggling for a place to focus. “Irene and I, we …”

“You what?”

He squirmed like an impaled worm and in the end looked to Irene for help
.

“Oleg and I have decided to live together,” Irene said. “We’re saving up to put a deposit on a flat in Bøler. We’re planning to work through until the summer and then …”

“And then?”

“Then we’re going to finish school,” Oleg said. “And then start at a university.”

“Law,” Irene said. “Oleg’s got such good grades.” She smiled the way she used to when she thought she’d said something stupid, but her usually pale cheeks were hot and red with pleasure
.

They’d been sneaking around and teaming up behind my fricking back! How did I miss that?

“Law,” I said, opening the bag, which still had more than a gram in it. “Isn’t that for people who want to go into law enforcement?”

Neither of them answered
.

I found the spoon I usually ate cornflakes with and wiped it on my thigh
.

“What are you doing?” Oleg asked
.

“This calls for celebration,” I said, pouring the powder onto the spoon. “Besides, we have to test the product ourselves before we recommend it to the old man.”

“So you don’t mind?” Irene exclaimed with relief in her voice. “We can keep going like before?”

“Of course, my dear.” I put the lighter under the bowl of the spoon. “This one’s for you, Irene.”

“Me? But I don’t think—”

“For my sake, sis.” I looked up at her and smiled. Smiled the smile she knew I knew she couldn’t resist. “It’s boring getting high by yourself, you know. Sort of lonely.”

The melted powder bubbled in the spoon. I didn’t have any cotton balls, so I thought about straining it through a broken-off cigarette filter. But it looked so clean. White, even consistency. So I let it cool for a couple of seconds before drawing it into the syringe
.

“Gusto …” Oleg began to say
.

“We’d better be careful we don’t OD—there’s enough for three here. You’re invited, too, my friend. But maybe you’d rather watch?”

I didn’t need to look up. I knew him too well. Pure of heart, blinded with love and clad in the armor of courage that had made him dive from forty-five-foot-high masts into Oslo Fjord
.

“OK,” he said and began to roll up his sleeve. “I’m in.”