There was an anonymous website-the server was somewhere in England-with pictures of the girls. You could sit at home, pick and choose. Either they came to you or you went to the apartment in Hallonbergen. Fahdi preferred Hallonbergen.
Jorge’d imagined something lavish/luxurious.
Instead, the dankest shit J-boy’d ever seen. Bad energy washed over him as soon as the door opened. A red wallpapered hall. Two stained velvet couches and a fake Persian carpet. Stank of sweat and smoke. In the background: Tom Jones. What bullshit.
Jorge and Fahdi kept their jackets on. A woman approached them. Heavily made-up face. Short hair, dyed red. Enormous bust. Long, curled fingernails that had to be plastic. Fake pearls hung around her neck. Fingers studded with stones. Strangest outfit Jorge’d ever seen. A black tailored blazer, looked proper enough, but when she turned around he saw the blazer had a deep V cut into the back, almost all the way down to her culo. She spoke bad, broken Swedish. Recognized Fahdi. They exchanged pleasantries. Jorge understood-it was the madam herself, Jelena.
Jorge and Fahdi sat down. Waited.
After fifteen minutes, a man walked into the hall. Turned his face away as he left the apartment. Silent agreement: They’d never seen each other. The woman came and got Fahdi. Through the kitchen door, Jorge glimpsed a coffeepot on the counter. Bizarre feeling. The brothel madam was having her coffee break, like at any regular workplace.
Five minutes later, the woman showed Jorge into a room. A wide bed stood in the middle. Poorly made. An armchair. Shades pulled down. On the bed: the whore.
Jorge remained standing in the doorway. Looked at her. She was thin. Small nose. Maybe been pretty once. Today, expressionless. The clothes: a gray tank top, black tights, miniskirt, high-heeled shoes. Classic hooker look.
No, he was wrong. She was still pretty and was checking him out as much as he eyed her.
“Hi,” Jorge said.
“Hi, hot stuff. What up? You first time here?” Thick Eastern European accent, but still comprehensible. Good. Jorge’d expressly asked for one who spoke Swedish.
“How much for a suck?”
“Four hundred. For you. You hot.”
“Skip the talk. I’ll pay five hundred if you’ll tell me some stuff.”
“What? Talk dirty?”
“No, I wanna know how you got to Sweden.”
The girl froze. Not unexpected. Probably had strict instructions not to talk about anything but fuck/cunt/cock with anyone.
Jorge tried to make her relax. “Forget it. I’ll pay three hundred for the BJ.”
The girl agreed. Unbuttoned his pants.
Tugged down his boxers.
Jorge, no erection.
She started sucking him.
Felt strange. Filthy.
Jorge was surprised-hadn’t thought he’d feel anything at all. He asked her to stop. Felt nauseous.
She didn’t seem to notice anything. Or, more likely, she could have cared less that he’d gone pale and sat down on the bed.
Two minutes of silence. He fingered the money.
Made another go of it. “I’ll give you a G on top of the three hundred if you tell me something about Nenad.” He held up two five-hundred-kronor bills.
Strangely enough, she started talking. Jorge’s theory: Now that he’d dished for sex, he couldn’t be a cop. Instead, he’d become a creature she knew well-a john was always a john.
“Me, I not know much. But all know Nenad.”
Jorge thought her voice sounded frail. “So, what’ve you heard about him?”
“Nenad in charge. Nenad danger for life. They scared of him.”
“Who? You girls or your pimps?”
“All. Girls, pimps. Johns. He done stuff to people. He work for Mr. R.”
Jorge thought, She’s saying a lot but really nothing. “What’s he done?” he asked.
“Rape, beat, sick stuff, use girls for sick stuff. All scared. But me, no. Not give shit about him.”
“And Mr. R., what do they say about him?”
She looked up. Jorge thought it looked like she was smiling.
“Mr. R. They talk, say him always with guns, him kill if offend, him control this city. Boss Nenad, who boss little pimps, who boss us. They say R. ice-cold. All power. Spread bad air. But me, I think exaggerate. Mr. R. not ice-cold. Mr. R. not spread bad air. Mr. R. spread Hugo Boss smell.”
Jorge sat beside her on the bed. She was special. He couldn’t say what it was, but she had something. For sure.
A knock at the door. Jorge got up.
The madam poked her head in the door. Asked how long they were gonna go at it. Saw they were both dressed. Jorge on his way out. She nodded.
The madam led him out.
In the hall, Fahdi was talking to a guy wearing a hoodie under a blazer.
Jorge and Fahdi left the apartment.
“Who you talkin’ to when I came out?”
“The girls’ pimp. The guy in charge. What a fucking cushy job.”
Jorge woke from his reverie. Checked his cell. Back to the present-Odenplan, waiting for the courier: Silvia Pasqual de Pizzaro.
Jorge saw the number on the screen. Recognized the digits before he heard the signal. It was Mehmed.
He was wondering why nothing’d happened yet.
Silvia should’ve been at the hotel ages ago. Something was crooked.
They hung up.
He kept waiting.
Stared at the Hotel Oden.
A taxi pulled up on the other side of the street: Top Cab. Fixed price from Arlanda Aiport: 350 kronor. The driver stepped out first. Opened the trunk, lifted out two Samsonite bags. A woman got out of the passenger seat.
Obviously her. Dressed in black jeans, black wool jacket. Hat with earflaps.
Silvia Pasqual de Pizzaro. Finally.
Rolled the bags behind her to the hotel. The sand that’d been poured on the icy sidewalk crunched under the wheels.
Jorge remained where he was. Mehmed stayed in the car, waiting for a green light from Jorge.
Jorge eyed the entrance to the hotel for ten minutes. No one else went in or out. Good sign. If the 5–0 were on their backs, they’d probably want to bust the hotel, pluck the courier at the handoff.
Jorge called the reception desk at the hotel. Asked if the woman’d checked in. He got the direct number to her room. Called Silvia. She answered. Shit English. She’d made it fine through customs. No one’d followed her. Everything seemed clear.
Jorge texted Mehmed. Saw him go into the hotel. His instructions were to order lunch and send it up to Silvia. When the waiter came back down, Mehmed would ask if Silvia’d been alone in the room. If the answer was yes, time to go up and collect the blow.
Jorge’d walked around to the other corner of the hotel. Saw the entrance from a side angle.
Waited.
Phone in hand. If someone suspicious-looking entered the Hotel Oden, he’d call Mehmed, stat. Plan B, in case of a chase: Mehmed would drop the gear out the window toward Hagagatan. Jorge could pick the shit up there. Book it to the car. Step on it.
Nothing shady happened.
Darkness was falling. The hotel’s vertical neon yellow sign glowed softly.
Ten minutes passed. Jorge’d calculated that it’d take fifteen minutes to get the blow out of the bags.
Five more minutes passed.
Mehmed came out. Scratched his head-the sign that everything was under control. He had a plastic shopping bag from the NK department store in one hand. Started walking toward his car. Jorge watched from a distance. No one was following, as far as he could tell.
Jorge saw his very own controller, the IT dude, get out of his car. Timing smooth as hell.