washed over them. He put the showerhead back in its holder, let the water pour over his hair, head, and torso. Turned up the heat.
Tried to forget about Camilla. Thought about Sophie instead. What was he doing wrong? He’d thought he was going to score with her at the Lovhalla Manor party. Instead, he’d ended up with Anna, her best friend. Anna was nice and all, but she didn’t have that extra something. How retarded was it to fuck Anna? Gossip about the party’d spread so widely, it might as well have been in the tabloids. Sophie could’ve found out. Maybe she was pissed.
Sophie in JW’s eyes: pretty as hell, body like a bikini model, sexy like a Playboy Bunny, charming like an intelligent talk-show host. And she had brains, too. Wrestled him to the ground verbally every time they had a discussion. Radiated smarts every time she opened her mouth. One-upped his jokes with a twinkle in her eye. But that wasn’t all-she seemed nice, too, even though she’d dissed him like a typical Lundsberg prep school chick. She got top grades, ten out of ten. He had to see her more, but without the boyz. Alone.
JW turned up the heat even more. Thought about peeing in the shower but didn’t. Wasn’t his style.
Maybe he didn’t have enough game. Maybe he should ignore Sophie. Not be so obviously into her. Not seem so happy to see her. Talk to her less and hit on her friends more. JW hated the tail game. And yet he was an expert at playing his own game in front of the boyz. But when it came to Sophie, he just wanted to hold her every time she was near. Hug her, kiss her, and all that. How the hell would he be able to act ice-cold? Sure, he could pick up girls at bars. Pull some one-liners. Get ’em in bed. Bag ’em. Brag in front of the boyz. But the serious stuff was trickier. The real game was wily.
He turned the heat up again. That’s what he always did; began with a temperature that was hard to perfect and felt good at first but got too cold after a couple of minutes. Made hot even hotter. In the end, the water was almost scalding. The mirror fogged up; the bathroom turned into a steam room.
Time to have lunch with Abdulkarim. JW got out of the shower and readied himself in the bathroom. Put on Clinique Happy under his arms and Biotherm moisturizer on his face. Putting wax in his hair was the last thing he did-the goo was so difficult to get off his fingers. He looked at himself in the mirror and thought: I look good.
He stepped out of the bathroom. Shivered. Got dressed. Put on the cashmere coat-a boy with class. Put his new MP3 player, a tiny Sony, in his pocket and put the earbuds in. They didn’t stay very well, tended to fall out. He tried to wedge them in at an angle. Put on a Coldplay song and walked down toward Sturegatan. It was a bright day. It was already twenty past three.
The Hotel Anglais was half-empty. Two waitresses sat at a table, folding napkins in prep for the night. Behind the bar, a guy in jeans and a T-shirt was sorting bottles of booze. Sly and the Family Stone was playing from the hidden speakers. Only two guests sat at a table. Abdulkarim didn’t appear to have arrived yet.
One of the napkin-folding chicks walked up to him. Led him to a table by the windows, far from the other guests. He ordered a coffee. Looked out through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Out toward Sturegatan. Humlegarden was right across the street. He thought about the first time he’d treated Sophie and Anna to a hit in the park. The gateway to the network. That was a little over five weeks ago now. He’d gotten to know more new people during that time than during his entire life. Cocaine-controlled chum cartels.
There weren’t a lot of people on the streets at three-thirty in the afternoon on a weekday. A couple of stressed-looking bankers in dark blue suits hurried past. Two moms, each pushing a baby carriage with one hand and holding a cell phone in the other, strolled up toward the park. One of them was pregnant again. JW thought about Susanne Pettersson. He’d be bitter, too, if he was in her situation. A lady walked by with a pug on a leash. JW leaned back in his chair and pulled out his cell phone. Fired off a text to Nippe, asking what the plan was for the night: Drinks at Plaza, maybe?
“ Salam aleikum. How’s school going?” Abdulkarim’s shrill voice, almost unaccented. JW looked up from his texting.
Abdul stood by his table. At least as much wax in his hair as in JW’s, but shaped differently. Some sort of pageboy look. Abdulkarim was always dressed in a suit, with the cuffs of his shirt peeking out of the jacket. As if he were some honest, hardworking banker or lawyer. What gave him away were the pants. They were three times baggier than the current fashion and had old-man pleats in the front. In 1996, the rest of the pants world had moved on and left Abdulkarim behind. The only thing he got right was a stylish silk handkerchief tucked into his breast pocket. Abdulkarim had a gait with attitude, a constant five o’clock shadow, and dark, glittering eyes. The heart of it: The Arab was the definition of a blatte playboy.
JW replied, “School’s good.”
“Isn’t college a little gay? Buddy, when you gonna realize there are faster roads to success? I really thought you’d have understood that by now.”
JW laughed. Abdulkarim took a seat. Waved his whole arm in order to get the attention of one of the waitresses. True Abdul the Arab. His gestures were too big. Un-Swedish, unreverent.
Abdulkarim ordered sesame-marinated, finely sliced filet of steer and noodles. Trendy. In the same breath, he managed to say that he wanted the waitress’s number, that she ought to change the music, and that he wondered whether the steer’d been well hung. He laughed for five minutes at his own joke.
JW ordered a seafood soup with aioli.
“Very good to see you like this. Was getting tired of just buzzing on the phone all the time.”
“You’re right. We need to get together, to celebrate. These are glorious times, Abdulkarim. If you can get me more, I need more. You know that.”
“Times are fattening you up. You switch that out, like I told you?” Abdulkarim pointed to JW’s cell phone.
“Nope, not yet. Sorry. I’ll buy a new one this week. Sony Ericsson’s latest. Have you seen it? It’s got a super-high-def camera. Really damn sweet.”
Abdulkarim imitated him. “‘Really damn sweet.’ I know your story. Stop talkin’ like you lived in Ostermalm since the cradle. Plus, I want you to buy a new cell phone today. Damn it, you gotta watch yourself. We do good business, you and me. Too good to fuck up because of bad phones, if you know what I mean.”
The Arab could seem silly sometimes, but JW knew the guy was a real pro. Cautious, never used words like police, cops, risk, cocaine, coke, or drugs in public. Knew that restaurant employees and customers could eavesdrop better than a gramps with his hearing aid turned up to max. Knew the police easily tapped cells, tracked contracts. Abdulkarim’s rules were safe. Always call from a pay-as-you-go SIM card, exchange the card every week, preferably switch phones every other week.
“You know, I got two other guys selling. They do good. Not as good as you, no, but okay. We can talk numbers on the phone. Prices are going down. My boss’s suppliers, they’re not perfect. Think there’re at least two middlemen between them and the wholesaler.”
“Why don’t you go straight to the wholesaler?”
“First of all, it’s not really my call. I work for the boss and don’t run my own fuckin’ business. I thought you knew that. Second of all, I think the wholesaler’s in England. Hard to read. Hassle to negotiate with. But we’re not here to talk about purchasing prices today. Not at all. What I want to tell you is, we need salespeople. In the boroughs, the projects. Someone who knows that market. Someone who can sell to other retailers. Someone who knows the business and the tricks, if you know what I mean. The prices are going down. The product is getting popular in Stockholm’s satellites. At the beginning of last year, the proportions were something like twenty borough, eighty inner city. At the end of last year, it was fifty-fifty. You with me, my man? The boroughs are waking up in winter, and loving the snow. It’s not just inner-city people, your upper-class buddies, and the partyers doing this stuff anymore. Everyone is. Svens, niggers, teenagers. It’s populist stuff. Folksy. Like IKEA, H amp;M. We’re talking bigger volume. We’re talking lower purchase prices. Growing margins. You follow, college boy?”
JW loved the Arab’s parley. He spoke better Swedish than expected, like a real businessman-serious business. The only thing that put him off was the fact that Abdul seemed scared of his boss for some reason. JW wondered why.
“It sounds interesting. For sure. But you know, the boroughs aren’t my turf. I can’t sell there. I don’t know anybody there. That’s just not me.”
“I know that’s what you want people to think about you. That’s fine with me. You got your market and you do good. But listen up.” Abdulkarim leaned across the table. JW got his drift, pushed his plate to the side. Crossed his arms and leaned his chest in closer.
Abdul looked him in the eye and lowered his voice. “There’s a guy, a Chilean or somethin’, who just broke outta the joint. I remember him from a couple years back, a clocker without much of a clue. But now talk has it the
