Jens Lapidus - Easy Money

Jorge wouldn’t give up.

This night belonged to him.

This night belonged to the Project.

The Radovan fag was gonna get it. Jet Set Carl or no Jet Set Carl. Fuck him. Jorge would get his hands on enough info anyway.

He just needed to talk more with Nadja.

Had gotten Zlatko Petrovic’s number from Fahdi. Jorge’d tried to reach him several times, without success.

He stood in the middle of Stureplan. In the background: hot-dog hawkers, trashed teenagers, shivering brats, boozy forty-year-olds.

Picked up his phone. No new texts from Fahdi, which meant he’d gotten an away game.

He dialed the number to the pimp, Zlatko.

The signal went through.

Finally, for the first time on this number, someone picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, I wanna have some fun tonight.”

“Then I’m your man. Got a name?”

Jorge gave Fahdi’s alias.

Zlatko replied, “All right. Course we can arrange something.”

“Great. I wanna see Nadja.”

Silence on the other end of the line.

Jorge said, “Did you hear me, or what? I like that Nadja girl.”

“I don’t know what you want. But she’s not with us anymore. Sorry.” The chill in Zlatko’s voice was colder than freezer-kept vodka.

“So then where can I see her? She was so good.”

“Yo, listen up. Never ask about Nadja ever again. She’s not with us. I know who you are. One more word about that fucking Nadja and we’ll crush you.”

The call was cut off-Zlatko’d indexed red.

Jorge was in a cab on his way to Fahdi’s apartment. Racked with angst. Racked with blow.

On his retina: Paola and Nadja. And the others: Mrado, Ratko, Radovan. He was gonna burn them. Avenge himself. Avenge Nadja. Radovan was gonna have to pay with bullet holes in his eyes. Assault in a forest. Paola’s contorted face.

Chaotic fragments of reality.

Hate.

Paola.

Hate.

The Radovan fucker.

Pendejo.

The cabbie looked anxiously at him. “Want me to walk you upstairs, buddy?”

Jorge said no thanks. Asked the guy to wait.

Up to Fahdi’s. Jorge always carried a set of keys to his apartment-needed to be able to get at the stash, Red Line baggies, and scales they kept there. Opened. Called out. No one home. Fahdi was probably getting what he wanted most.

To the closet.

Jorge knew what he was looking for. Fahdi’d proudly exhibited his gear to him and JW a month earlier. He leaned in.

Rummaged around.

Got hold of the shotgun. Opened it by pressing the safety on the side. Put in two red shells the size of rolls of Life Savers. Stuffed a fistful of shells in the front pocket of his jeans. It bulged.

Tucked the shotgun inside his jacket. Wasn’t visible at all. Sawed-off barrels were good.

The taxi was purring on the street.

The blow flowed through his veins in a pulsating beat.

He vacuumed up the last white milligrams as the taxi drove off. Unclear if the driver noticed anything.

The cab accelerated on the freeway.

Hallonbergen.

A cold wind blew along the external hallway. He accidentally knocked over a kid’s sled that was leaning against the wall. Apparently, there were ordinary families as brothel neighbors.

He rang the doorbell.

Someone pulled aside the cover for the peephole. A voice from inside: “What’s your name?”

Sounded like the brothel madam. Jorge hoped that the Zlatko dude hadn’t told her anything about his call fifty minutes ago. Fahdi’s alias again. There was a password, too. He knew both.

She unlocked the door. It was her, the brothel madam in her strange outfit-the blazer with the slit in the back. Clown-painted. Scary.

Jorge slammed the door shut behind him. Cut right to the chase. “I wanna see Nadja.”

The brothel madam stiffened. On her guard 100 percent.

She said in her shitty Eastern Bloc Swedish, “Listen, she not here anymore. If you the one call me hundred million time, you can piss off.”

Unanticipated aggression. Determined menace.

J-boy felt close to the breaking point. Pent-up waves of explosive blow-temper crashed against the inside of his skull. This’d be the last time a Serb fucked with him.

Took a step toward the brothel madam. “You fucking cunt. Either you tell me where Nadja is or I’ll take you out.”

The brothel madam cranked up her volume fiercely. “Who the fuck you think you are?”

The effect of the raised voice: From the shadows, from the hallway, Zlatko appeared.

The brothel madam freaked. Kept yelling at Jorge to scram. That he’d regret his behavior.

Zlatko positioned himself a foot from Jorge. His breath smelled like hell. He said in a calm voice, “What did I tell you on the phone just now? Are you slow? Stop digging around in this thing. Just leave.”

Super Serbian-style. Reminded him of Mrado.

He could feel the abuse in his back. Legs. Arms.

Jorge tore out the shotgun.

One shot at Zlatko.

Guts gone. Replaced with a gaping hole.

Ground tripe on the wall behind him.

The brothel madam screamed.

Another shot-her head disappeared. Brain matter on the velvet couches.

The recoil slammed into Jorge’s shoulder. Hurt.

Jorge opened the weapon. Stuck his hand in his pocket. Reloaded, two new shells.

From the hall came a man. Sheet-white face. Bare chest. Unbuttoned pants. In shock.

Jorge shot. Missed. Forty-square-inch hole in the plaster wall. A cloud of dust.

He ran toward him. The man stumbled on his sagging pants.

Cried. Begged.

Jorge stood over him. The double barrel against his head.

Checked his pockets. Found a wallet. Pulled out a driver’s license.

Read aloud, “Torsten Johansson. You’ve never seen me.”

The old trick remained where he was, sobbing on the floor.

Other than that, the apartment was quiet.

“Give me your cell phone. Get on your stomach. Hold your hands above your head. I’ve got some stuff to take care of.”

The man didn’t move. He lay with his head folded between his arms, his knees pulled up in a fetal position.

“Don’t you understand Swedish, or what? Do what I told you. Now.”

The man stretched out. Fumbled in his pants pocket. Brought out a cell phone. Gave it to Jorge. Put his hands on his head.

Jorge, again: “You’ve never seen me.”

He checked the whore rooms. In one of them was a girl, crouching against the wall, her head between her knees. It wasn’t Nadja.

Jorge walked out into the hall. Didn’t look at the bodies. Stepped right through the chaos. Into the kitchen.

It was dirty in there. A little table of white wood and a chair with a steel frame and a soft seat cushion. Coffee stains everywhere. Ads from Hallonbergen’s pizza joints were pinned on the fridge with free Social Democratic party handout magnets from the 2002 election.

On the table was a laptop. Pretty much what Jorge’d suspected.

Best of all: It was turned on. Jorge sat down on the chair. The computer was plugged into the wall. Question: If he pulled the plug, would the battery kick in or would it die? Jorge wasn’t exactly a computer geek. But he did know one thing: If the computer died, there was a risk that it’d demand some sort of password in order to start back up. Could fuck the whole thing up if he couldn’t get into it again.

Cocaine-lit assessments: He couldn’t stay in the apartment many more seconds. Had he touched anything?

No.

He took the risk-pulled the power cord.

Checked the screen.

God loved Jorge.

The computer was still on.

He ran toward the front door. Through the hall. Was about to grab the door handle, when a phone rang. Sony Ericsson’s “Old Phone” ringtone-sounded like an ancient spin-dial telephone. Someone’s cell was ringing. Probably the john’s, the madam’s, the pimp’s, or one of the prostitutes’. He checked the john’s. Wasn’t the one making the noise. Jorge listened. Saw the blood. The clotty substance on the ceiling and floors. Finally heard. It was coming from the pimp’s pocket.