Jorge tried to keep moving. Not end up too long in one spot. Avoid calling attention to himself. Danced for fifteen minutes with a pretty, tall girl with an Eastern European accent and pupils the size of needle pins. High on blow or other uppers. He thought about Nadja. Parts of her story were starting to fall into place. The only thing that didn’t jibe was that he hadn’t seen Radovan anywhere.
For fifteen minutes, Jorge sat in an armchair and carried on an incomprehensible conversation with a guy involved in financial instruments. Worked reasonably well, despite all odds.
For fifteen minutes, he disappeared into the bathroom.
Picked up the name of the guy who was giving the party: Sven Bolinder. Who was that?
A couple of old guys and girls started disappearing from the room. Jorge, worried. Had they gone home? He asked the Eastern European chick he’d danced with. When she answered-Jorge almost yelled out his surprise-it was more hard-core than he’d expected.
“I guess they’ve gone up to the rooms. Want to take a peek up there?”
Joder.
The rooms.
The guy who organized the party hadn’t just brought the whores. He provided rooms, too.
That was some high-class shit. Nicely done. Commonest, dirtiest, simplest form of prostitution-you go to a place, you pay, and you get a room and a girl-remade to create the feeling: I’m invited to a party without my wife. I happen to meet a hot piece of ass there. I turn her on and we sneak up to an empty room in the house and have a little fun.
He declined her offer. No room for him.
Thought: What’ve I achieved? Nada. No further evidence against Radovan. I have to do something, now. Before everyone leaves to get what they came here for.
He got an idea.
Jorge approached the bartender. Played wasted.
“Excuse me. Is there somewhere I can make a call?”
“Don’t think so, sorry. Do you need a taxi? I’ll get you one.”
“No. I need to make another call. I left my phone in the coat check. Could I borrow yours for a sec?” Jorge waved a thousand-kronor bill. “I’ll pay, of course.”
The bartender averted his eyes from the money. Continued to mix his drink, crushed ice and strawberries in a blender.
Jorge was playing a high-stakes game. Possibly they had cell phone policies. Or they’d just asked him to leave his own phone in the coat check out of courtesy. It could work.
“It’s cool.” The bartender handed over his phone.
“I’ll step outside and make the call. Have to have quiet around me. Okay?”
“Cool.”
Beautiful, J-boy.
Jorge took the cell phone. Turned it around. As expected. Yugos and brats had something in common: They liked high-tech gadgets. No matter which category the bartender belonged to, Jorge’d guessed right. The dude had a cell phone with a high-def camera.
Jorge got going. The men weren’t paying any attention. Staff surveillance had decreased as people started disappearing from the party room to the separate rooms.
Jorge pretended to talk. Held the phone a few inches from his ear. Actually, the camera was snapping away-paparazzi-style. Didn’t give a shit if the bartender guy wondered what he was doing. Quickly scanned through some pictures. Crappy quality. He didn’t dare use the flash. Bad light and distance-the pictures were grainy and dark. Could hardly tell it was people in the pictures.
Didn’t work. He deleted the pictures.
Tried to get closer to the armchairs.
Hard to get a good angle.
Decided to take the risk. Held the phone up in front of him. Snapped new photos. Looked again. They were somewhat better, but still hard to make out much in them.
To be safe, he scrolled to the e-mail function. Typed in his own Hotmail address. Sent a picture. Then two more.
Looked up. Saw the bartender coming toward him. Followed by the security guard from the front door.
Fuck.
Sent two more pictures.
Smiled.
Scrolled back to the main menu. Held out the phone.
The bartender yelled over the music. “You said you were stepping out. What’ve you done?”
“It’s cool. I just chatted a little. Ended up staying in here.”
The bouncer guy didn’t look pleased. “No cell phones in here. Don’t you know that?”
Jorge repeated, “I just chatted with a colleague. What’s your problem?” Jorge tried to sound self-assured. “Maybe we should talk to Sven Bolinder about this?”
The bouncer hesitated.
Jorge plowed on-it’d worked by the gates.
“Come on. Let’s take this to Sven. I’m apparently not allowed to borrow a phone and make a call. Is that what you’re saying?” Jorge pointed over toward Sven Bolinder. The nasty old hound was seated in one of the armchairs, closely entwined with a girl who didn’t look a day over seventeen.
The bouncer hesitated even more.
Jorge kept pushing. “I’m sure he’d love to be bothered right now.”
Tension in the air.
The bartender looked at the bouncer.
The bouncer gave up. Apologized. Walked away.
Jorge acted calm. Inside: keyed up like crazy.
He had to get away from there.
Walked out to the coat check.
When the coat-check girl handed him his coat, she said, “Too bad you’re leaving, sweetie,” in an accent he couldn’t place.
Jorge, silent.
Took the coat.
Walked out.
Didn’t see any guards.
He started the car. Drove toward the gates.
It was half-past twelve.
The gates slid open.
He drove out onto the road.
Away from Smadalaro.
Away from the sickest shit on this side of the Pinochet era.
He thought, Captains of industry cavort like kings.
Fuck yourselves.
Jorge’s the King.
50
The feel of double-double-gaming was titillating. At the same time, it was strange and demanding-almost too many lies to keep track of. The fact was that JW needed to study his own lies instead of his finance textbook, or else there was a risk he’d let his tongue slip.
People thought he was a backslick brat. Really, he was a regular Joe Schmo pleb who made his money in the dirtiest way possible. Abdulkarim thought he made his money by working for him, administrating the C business. Really, JW was gonna make the big time by betraying Abdul for Nenad.
But whom was he betraying, really? Above the bosses were other bosses. He worked for Abdulkarim, who worked for Nenad, who apparently worked or had worked for someone else. Why all this hush-hush? Who was he betraying if he worked for Abdul but worked even more for Nenad? Of course, someone was behind it all. But who? The Yugo boss himself-Radovan? The Yugo boss in some other faction? Some other gang? JW didn’t even want to guess. Anyway, it wasn’t his problem, not really.
Two weeks’d passed since Nenad’d made his offer. Conflicting interests were battling inside him. JW was randy for riches. At the same time, he should be afraid of the person, whoever it was, that he was betraying. He weighed his options. The advantages were easy to see. First up, the money. Runner-up, the money. Third place, ibid. Besides, he was living more dangerously than he cared to think about. Why run that race and not get the maximum dividend? No reason. If he was going to live like a drug kingpin, he might as well live large. He’d heard Jorge say it, the gangsta rappers’ motto: Get Rich or Die Trying. That was the truth of the day.
The disadvantage was more difficult to calculate. It was constituted by the danger. The person he betrayed would, most likely, not exactly be cartwheeling for joy. The risk of being found out by the police’s narcs increased. The risk of being gypped on all fronts increased.
But, he repeated to himself, the money.
It took him two days to think it through. He chose the big shots over Abdulkarim, the high rollers over a B-list Arab, cash over danger. Nenad, in other words.