Easy Money (5 page)

Before he dropped them off, he said, “Ladies, I have to ask you something.”

They thought he was going to make a move.

“Have you ever met a girl out named Camilla Westlund? Tall, pretty, from the north. Like, four years ago?”

The babblebrauds looked like they were thinking, hard.

“I’m not too great with names, but none of us recognize Camilla Westlund,” one said.

JW thought, Maybe they are too young. Maybe they weren’t partying at the right places back then.

They got out by the bus stops at Norrmalmstorg. He gave the chicks his cell phone number. “Call whenever you need a ride.”

Time for more driving.

He parked by Kungsträdgården Park. Couldn’t stop thinking. It was the first time he’d asked anyone about Camilla. Why not, anyway? Maybe someone would remember.

Seven minutes passed before the next passenger was seated in the Ford.

It was a calm night. Everything went off smoothly. The clubbers were into it, wanted to get home. JW delivered.

Later. The night was a success; he’d made two thousand kronor so far. Mental arithmetic. That meant twelve hundred in his pocket.

He was waiting outside Kvarnen on Tjärhovsgatan. Mostly jailbait and soccer fans. The line was long, more orderly than the one outside Kharma. Lamer people than at Kharma. Cheaper than Kharma. No one was being let in just then—something’d happened inside. Two police vans were parked outside. Their flashing lights illuminated the walls. JW wanted to get out of there fast; it was needless to take risks with the car.

As he was walking back to the Ford, a familiar figure came toward him. One who walked with rhythm, dressed in a well-tailored suit with billowing pants. High hairline and short, curly hair. Without really being able to make out the figure’s face, JW knew who it was: Abdulkarim. He had his big friend in tow, his very own gorilla: Fahdi.

JW looked at him, hoped nothing was up.

Abdulkarim said hi, opened the car door, and got into the passenger seat. The gorilla folded himself into the back.

JW jumped in behind the wheel. “Nice to see you out and about. Anything in particular you want to check?”

“No, no. No worry, man. Just drive us to Spy.”

Spy Bar. Stureplan. What was he going to say?

JW started the car. Held off answering. Made a decision—he couldn’t stir shit up with the Arab.

“Spy Bar it is.”

“There a problem?”

“Absolutely not. It’s all good. It’s a pleasure to drive you, Abdul.”

“Don’t call me Abdul. It means ‘slave’ in Arabic.”

“Okay, boss.”

“Me, I know you donwanna drive to Stureplan, JW. Know you donwanna be seen there. Got fancy buddies there. You’re ashamed, man. Never be ashamed.”

The Arab fucker knew. How? Maybe not so strange, if you thought about it. Abdulkarim was out a lot. He’d seen JW with his friends around Stureplan. Connected the dots. Understood why he didn’t tend to make pickups there. The rest was just simple math.

He had to do damage control.

“It’s not that bad, Abdulkarim. Come on, it’s no big deal. I just have to make some money. Want to be able to party and stuff. This isn’t the kind of thing you tell everybody.”

The Arab nodded. The Arab laughed. The Arab controlled the convo. Small talk.

Then it happened. The offer.

“Me? I know you need the big cheese. I got a suggestion. Pay attention. Could be up your alley.”

JW nodded. Wondered what was coming. Damn, did Abdulkarim like the sound of his own voice.

“I have some other business, other than the cabs. Sell C. I know, you’ve bought candy from me. Through Gurhan, you know, the Turk you and your buddies get it from. But Gurhan won’t work. Big Jew. Tryin’ to rip me off. Skims the top. Sells too high. Doesn’t keep good books. And, worst thing, he buys from some other guy, too. Tryin’ to be clever. Play us against each other. Pressure me. He says, ‘If I can’t get it for four hundred a gram I don’t wanany this week.’ Messy. No good. That’s where you come in, JW.”

JW was listening but didn’t catch on. “Pardon me, but I don’t think I’m following.”

“I’m wondering, you wanna sell instead of Gurhan? You run this taxi thing real good. You hang at the right bars. Believe me, I know. Bars where people’s drills are as full of sugar as sugar drills. You’d do good.”

“What’s a sugar drill?”

“Forget it. You in or what?”

“Shit, Abdul. I have to think about it. I was actually thinking about that the other day. Wondering how well the Turk makes out.”

“Don’t call me Abdul. And sure, go ahead. Think about it, big man. But remember, you could be like Uncle Scrooge. Swimming in it. You want in. I can feel it. Call before next Friday.”

JW focused on the road. They drove down Birger Jarlsgatan. He was nervous. Kept a lookout for the boyz while trying to hunch as low in the seat as possible.

Abdulkarim rattled on in Arabic with the meathead in the back. Laughed. JW grinned without knowing why. Abdul grinned back, continued to jabber in Arabic to Fahdi. They were approaching their final destination.

Stureplan. Huge lines outside the nightclubs and bars: Kharma, Laroy, Sturecompagniet, Clara’s, Köket, East, The Lab, and the rest. More people out than ever in the daytime. A gold mine for gypsy cabs.

JW stopped the car. Abdulkarim opened the door. “You know the deal. Before Friday.”

JW nodded.

He stepped on it.

JW’s last pickup of the night was a hammered middle-aged man who mumbled something about Kärrtorp. JW said he’d take him there for three hundred kronor.

He drove in silence. Needed to think. The man fell asleep.

The road was dark. Hardly any cars out except a few taxis. JW felt the anxiety of decision making wash over him.

On one hand: fantastic luck, a chance, a real opportunity. Probably nothing else offered the kinds of margins that coke did. How would it work? Buy a gram for five hundred, sell for one thousand? Calculate. The boyz alone could easily do four grams a night. He should be able to turn twenty thousand kronor. At least. He multiplied. Gains from one night: ten thousand. Holy shit.

On the other hand: mad dangerous, really fucking illegal, scary. One mistake and he could screw it all up, his whole life. Was it his kind of gig? It was one thing to use now and then. Dealing was a totally different ball game. Be a part of the drug industry, make money on other people’s fried sinuses, their wrecked lives. Didn’t feel right.

On the other hand: No one ruined their life on coke, as far as he knew. Mostly, it was better people who did it anyway. Like the boyz, for instance, who snorted to have a good time, not to escape some bottom-feeder existence. They studied, had money and good families. No problem for them. No risk of tweaky junkies. No risk JW had to suffer a bad conscience.

On the other hand: Abdulkarim and his crowd were probably not the nicest boys in town. Just take the backseat gorilla. Didn’t take much to see that Fahdi was lethal. What would happen if JW couldn’t pay, got in trouble? Messed up sales? Was robbed of merch? Maybe it was too dangerous.

On the other hand: the money. A sure way. An easy way. Learn from Gekko: “I don’t throw darts at a board. I bet on sure things.” The returns in this industry were guaranteed. JW had the need—and he wouldn’t stay a tragic Sven. There’d be an end to the secondhand clothes, the home-cut hair, and the boarding. An end to being cheap. The dream of being able to live normally could come true. The dream of a car, an apartment, a fortune, could come true. He’d be included in the business plans the boyz had.

HE’D BE INCLUDED.

Successful C entrepreneur versus loser.

Crime versus safety.

What to do?

Saturday night in Stockholm: clubs, chicks, credit cards. Trashed seventeen-year-olds. Trashed twenty-five-year-olds. Trashed forty-three-year-olds. Trashed all ages.

Bouncers with leather jackets and cocky attitudes: denied, denied, denied. Some didn’t get it—find your kind of place or be denied entrance. Don’t try to get in where you don’t belong.

Along Kungsgatan, the Svens caravanned. Along Birger Jarlsgatan, the brats were on parade. Business as usual.

Mrado, Patrik, and Ratko were going on a raid. They grabbed a beer at the blingy hub Sturehof before starting out. Tonight they were doing the south side, Södermalm.

Coat checks equaled gold mines. Calculation of a midtier place: Force everyone with some sort of jacket or other personal item to check it. Twenty kronor a head. Extra for bags. Four hundred people passing through on average. Sum: at least eight thousand kronor per night. Ninety percent off the books. All money in cash. Impossible for Big Brother Tax Collector to control the revenue. And the only cost was a pretty girl to stand there and run the show.

The scheme was advantageous: The Yugos collected a fixed rate of three thousand per weekend night. Nothing on weekdays. The place and the coat-check personnel had their own agreements about how the rest was distributed. Win-win: good business for everyone.

Strategy of the night: Mrado and Ratko stood in the background. Patrik fronted, did the talking.

It had to go off smoothly. If shit went down, Mrado would have to take the consequences. The fight for Radovan’s favor was getting heated. Mrado was competing with the other men directly under R.: Goran, Nenad, Stefanovic. It’d been different under Jokso: Then they played like a team. Serbs together. Three types of coat checks in Stockholm: the ones Radovan controlled, the ones someone else controlled, like the Hells Angels or the club king Göran Boman, and finally, the ones that were independent. The latter: no good. Proceeded at their own risk.

They started at Tivoli on Hornsgatan. The place: Radovan-controlled. Patrik went up to the girl working the coat check. Mrado nodded. Recognized her. They went way back. He put his hand on Patrik’s shoulder. “I got this. I know her.”

Everything was cool. She was on ticket number 162. The night was young. He took a look in the cash box. Seemed straight. No funny stuff.

They moved on. The place across the street, Marie Laveau, was controlled by Göran Boman. His time would come one day, but they let it go for now.

They continued toward Slussen. The night was cool. Ratko talked about how he was gonna build his upper body. Chow on lean protein: tuna and chicken. Pop Dbols. Do double sessions at the gym. New ideas for how to plan his training.

Mrado looked at him. Ratko was built but needed many hours at the gym before he’d play in Mrado’s league.

Patrik revealed that he’d eaten ice cream only twice in the past year. The single unhealthy thing he put into his body was beer.

Mrado got lost in thought. The guys were obsessed with the wrong stuff. He thought about Lovisa, his daugher. His ex, Annika, lived with her. Mrado had visitation rights, every other Wednesday night to Thursday night. It wasn’t enough, but they were still the best days in the month. His schedule as a collector/dealer/hit man was perfect. Had the whole day free for museums, children’s theaters, the latest Disney flicks. They ate pizza, watched movies, and read Serbian children’s books. Mrado could honestly say to those around him, “I am a good father.” Family court, Annika, society, everyone—they didn’t think that a Serbian man could take care of kids. Bullshit.

He should retire. Get more visitation. Be more with Lovisa. Stop being hard-boiled.

They walked up to Götgatan. Checked spots off the list. Most were already controlled, but there were some wild cards. Patrik did good work. Stepped up. Mrado and Ratko stood in the background, clearly visible. Arms crossed. Patrik asked to speak to the person in charge of the coat check. Patrik explained the advantages. Patrik: in tight jeans, T-shirt, thin green military jacket, shaved skull covered in scars, tattoos protruding on his neck.

Be afraid.

“We make sure you don’t have any trouble with mobs or gangs. You wouldn’t want your coat-check cash robbed all the time, would you? Our insurance covers that kind of thing. We can help you get more paying customers. We have lots of good ideas about how to increase coat-check efficiency.” Yada, Yada, Yada.

Most people bought the bull. Some’d been visited before. No problems. People didn’t want to get the Yugos on their backs. Some refused. Patrik didn’t make a scene. Just asked to come back later. They knew they were being fucked—smile and take it or have to take it from someone else.

They walked along Götgatan. Down to Medborgarplatsen. It was 1:00 a.m. A lot of places were starting to close. Down by Medborgarplatsen, Snaps, 5ifty4our, Kvarnen, Gröne Jägaren, Mondo, Göta Källare, and farther down, Metro and East 100, still open.

Snaps belonged to Göran Boman. Gröne Jägaren belonged to HA.

They went into Mondo, in Medborgarhuset. A youth center. Lots of people. Patrik did his thing. The place got the drift. Wanted to make a deal. Most restaurant and bar owners counted the coat-check revenue in their own balance sheets. Mrado thought the ex-skin did good. Over the year they’d been working together, Patrik’d toned down his hotheaded tendencies, picked up the right style: calm, assured, commanding respect.

They left at quarter past one. Gypsy cabs swarmed outside Medborgarplatsen.

On to one of the biggest bars and clubs on the south side: Kvarnen. An old boozehound and soccer hooligan hub. Place’d gone wild when Bajen, the area’s team of choice, won the national championship in 2001. The old room had once been a beer hall. High ceilings. Columns, wooden tables, turn-of-the-century wood paneling. The new room was decorated in an aquatic theme. Aquariums and blue stylized water drops on the walls. The basement had a fire theme. Orange walls, no big tables, only bar stools and little tables screwed into the walls serving as parking spots for beers.

The line stretched all the way out to Götgatan. Nearly forty yards long. Pretty orderly. No drama at the door. Hipsters with complex hairstyles and accessories. Alternative types with tightly laced boots and Palestinian scarves. Popfuckers: dyed black hair with bangs. Bajen soccer fans: no frills.

Kvarnen drew quite a crowd.

Mrado, Patrik, and Ratko cut the line. People glared, pissed. But still—no protests. They got it. Unmistakably registered the aura of respect.

The bouncer said no. “No first-class boarding.” This is the democratic south side. Jackass. Patrik kept cool. Explained that they just wanted to have a chat with the coat-check attendant. The bouncer was clueless. Refused to let them in. Mrado wondered who the loser was. Stared. Patrik tried again. Explained that they didn’t want to cut the line, just had some business with the coat-check attendant. The bouncer turned his head. Saw Mrado. Seemed to get it. Let them in.

The coat check was run by the bouncers themselves. Unusual. Meant trouble.

The coat-check bouncers: three big guys. Their shirts bulged, the panels of their bulletproof vests visible beneath the fabric. Controlled the crowd with a rough attitude. Take no prisoners. Real southies. Wouldn’t budge on the fee, didn’t matter that tons of people only had thin jackets. Even the pretty girls had to pay. These boys worked for SWEA Security—a Sven company for real Sven boys.

The head bouncer, their front man, knew right away whom he was dealing with. Maybe he’d heard the outside discussion in his earpiece. “Hey, hey. Welcome to Kvarnen. Unfortunately, we’re not interested in your business, but feel free to come in and have a drink.”

Patrik, who’d already gotten fired up from the provocation at the door, was getting his edge back. “You in charge of the coat check here tonight? Why don’t we go have a chat. I’ve got a proposition.”

Mrado and Ratko stayed put in the background. Mrado, laser-focused. Tried to listen.

The bouncer said, “I’m in charge here. But I don’t have time to talk right now. You either go in or out. Sorry.”

“We weren’t treated very well at the door. I want to talk to you now. You follow? Your other two guys’ll be just fine here by themselves for ten minutes.”

Attitude. The two other bouncers glanced over. Saw there was trouble. The front man said, “Excuse me. Perhaps I wasn’t clear? We’re not interested in your services. We play our own game. I don’t want to be impolite, but you have to understand that we’re fine. Without you.”

Patrik’s body language screamed, I want to take this fucker down.

His fists were balled, knuckles whitening. His tattoos seemed to spark.

Mrado stepped up, laid his hand on Patrik’s shoulder. Calmed him. Turned to the front man, “Okay, we’ll go in. We’ll have a seat and wait for you. Come in when you have time to talk.”

Shit was tense.

Mrado tugged at Patrik. Ratko did the same.

Patrik caved. Went in.

Anticlimax.

The bouncers won.

Mrado ordered beer. They sat down at a table.

The volume in the beer hall was on high.

Patrik leaned toward Mrado, “What the fuck was that? We can’t tolerate that kind of shit. Why’d you pull me away?”

“Patrik, chill out. I’m with you. We’ll talk to him, but not in front of all the guests. Not in front of the other bouncers. That’d be trouble. Listen. We’ll sit here, relax. Maybe he’ll come to us. Maybe not. But we don’t forget, we wait, and when that cunt has to go to the bathroom or is on his way home or whatever, then we’ll have a little chat with him. Tell him what’s up.”

Patrik calmed down. Looked more relaxed. Ratko cracked his knuckles.

They chilled. Mrado drank light beer. Checked out the chicks. Checked out the place. Checked out the bouncers on the sly. He was sitting so he could see straight into the coat check. But he didn’t make any obvious eyes in that direction. Easy does it.

They talked about Ratko’s upper body again. Went over different steroids. Mrado told a few Radovan secrets even though he shouldn’t. Patrik told them how he’d shot a Magnum last weekend: the recoil, the pressure, the bullet holes.

Patrik got personal. Asked Mrado, “How many’ve you killed?”

Mrado, dead serious: “I was down in Yugoslavia in 1995. Draw your own conclusions.”

“Right, but what about here in Sweden?”

“I don’t talk about that. I do what needs to be done for business to run smoothly. That’s one thing I can teach you, Patrik. Loyalty to R. and business is everything. Sometimes you just gotta roll with the punches. Can’t sit and think about and regret the shit you’ve done. I’m not proud of everything.”

Patrik pushed him, “Like what?”

“Learn one more thing: We do more than we talk. Sometimes you’ve got to do stuff that ain’t pretty. What can I say? Like, for example, I’ve had to take care of friends who weren’t reliable, or women, hookers, who messed around. That kind of thing, I wouldn’t say it’s what I’d put at the top of my résumé.”

Patrik fell silent. Understood. There are some things you just don’t discuss.

They jabbered on about other things.

An hour went by.

The general party mood in the beer hall was on the rise.

The bouncer guy was still standing in his spot. It was quarter past two. The place closed at four. They waited. The party people were shit-faced. Mrado drank a seltzer. Patrik ordered his sixth beer. Was getting really tanked. Ratko drank coffee. Patrik returned to their treatment at the door. Stoked the fire. The bouncer fags would be schooled. The bouncer fags would cry. Crawl. Beg. Groan. Concuss.

Mrado calmed him down. Glanced at the coat check. The bouncers couldn’t have cared less about them. Were they stupid? Didn’t they get who they were dealing with?

Another hour went by.

They waited. Jabbered on.

At one point, the head bouncer left his position.

Patrik drained his glass. Got up. Mrado saw he was okay, not too trashed. Mrado got up, right by Patrik. Face-to-face.

Patrik was wide-eyed. His breath reeked. Put a lighter in front of his mouth and the place would explode worse than a gas station.

Mrado took his face in his hands. The noise in the hall was deafening. He yelled, “You okay?”

Patrik nodded. Pointed toward the bathrooms. Probably had to piss after all that beer.

He walked in that direction.

Mrado sat back down. Ratko looked at him, leaned across the table. Asked, “Where he goin’?”

“Bathroom.”

Like a bolt of lightning through Mrado’s head. Fuck, how could he be so dense. The bouncer’d probably gone to the bathroom and Patrik was following him there—without Mrado or Ratko.

Mrado got up. Waved at Ratko. “Follow me. Now.”

They hurried after Patrik.

Stepped into the bathroom.

White tiles and large metal sinks. One wall covered by a mirror. Five urinals on the opposite wall. Stalls farther in. Leaking toilets. Piss on the floor.

Contact.

The head bouncer was standing at one of the urinals. At the sinks, three guys were talking. Looked like losers: unbuttoned shirts over T-shirts. Farther in, two kids were queuing at the toilet stalls.

Patrik on his way to the guy.

The bouncer turned around, cock still in hand.

Patrik stood only inches away from him. “Remember me? You dissed me, straight out. Totally wrote off our services. You think I’d let that go unpunished?”

The bouncer understood. Mumbled something. Tried to calm Patrik down. The guy’d been around the block. Started fumbling for his earpiece with his free hand.

Patrik took another step, unclear if he’d registered that Mrado and Ratko’d followed him into the bathroom.

He head-butted the bouncer guy on the nose. The blood appeared even redder against the white tiles as it sprayed the wall. The bouncer yelled for his colleagues. Tried to shove Patrik aside. The bouncer, strong. Big. But Patrick, amped. The losers at the sink started hollering. The boys by the stalls ran forward to break it up. Mrado stepped between them. Pushed them away. Not exactly tough guys. Ratko positioned himself by the exit. Blocked. Patrik grabbed hold of the bouncer’s short hair. Pounded his head against the urinal. Teeth went flying. Pounded again. More teeth. His nose broke in x number of places. The urinal looked like a butcher’s sink. Patrik pounded the bouncer’s head again. It sounded hollow. He let go. The bouncer guy collapsed on the floor. Unconscious. His face, unrecognizable. The losers by the sinks were crying. The kids by the toilet stalls were screaming.