Jens Lapidus - Easy Money

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.