EASY MONEY Read online

  Life shat on Jorge. Life blew horse cock. Life was tough. But Jorge was stronger than that—they’d see.

  The joint stole his energy. Stole his laughter. Rap life remade as crap life. But what only he knew was that there was an end to it, an idea to realize, a way out. Jorge: homeboy you couldn’t keep down. He was gonna get out, break out, escape from this shithole. He had a plan. And it was thick as cream. Whipped.

  Losers—adiós.

  One year, three months, and nine days in the slammer. Which is to say, more than fifteen months too long behind a twenty-three-foot concrete wall. Jorge’s longest time yet. He’d only done short stints before. Three months for theft, four months for possession, speeding, and reckless driving. The difference this time: He had to create a life for himself on the inside.

  Österåker was a close-security prison, a correctional facility of the second degree. Specialty: those condemned for drug-related crimes. Heavily guarded from both directions. No one and nothing got in that wasn’t supposed to. Drug dogs sniffed through all visitors. Metal detectors sniffed through all pockets. COs sniffed out the general mood. Shady types needn’t apply. They only let in mothers, children, and lawyers here.

  And still they didn’t succeed. The place used to be clean—during the previous warden’s days. Now bags of weed were catapulted over the walls with slingshots. Dads got drawings from their daughters that were actually smeared with LSD. The shit was hidden above the inner roof in the common areas, where the dogs couldn’t smell it, or was dug down in the lawn in the rec yard. Everyone and no one could be blamed.

  A lot of people smoked up every day. Drank four gallons of water so it wouldn’t show in the urine test. Others freebased heroine. Lay in their rooms and played sick for two days until the piss wouldn’t come back positive.

  People stayed for a long time at Österåker. Grouped off. The COs did their best to split up the gangs: the Original Gangsters, the Hells Angels, the Bandidos, the Yugoslavians, the Wolfpack Brotherhood, the Fittja Boys. You name it.

  A lot of the screws were scared. Threw in the towel. Accepted the bills thrust at them in the chow line, on the soccer field, in the shop. The prison administration tried to be in the know. Break things up. Send members to other institutions. But what did it matter. The gangs were in all the prisons anyway. The lines of demarcation were clear: race, housing project, type of crime. The white supremacist gangs didn’t measure up. The heavy hitters were the Hells Angels, the Bandidos, the Yugos, and the OG. Organized on the outside. Worked heavy shit. The operational description clear: Make thick cheddar through multicriminal work.

  The same gangs controlled the city outside the walls. Nowadays tiny smuggled cell phones made it as easy as zapping channels with a remote. Society might as well surrender.

  Jorge avoided them. After a while, he made friends anyway. Got by. Found mutual points of interest. Chileans connected. People from Sollentuna connected. Most blow connections connected.

  He hung out with an old Latino from Märsta, Rolando. The guy came to Sweden from Santiago in 1984. Knew more about snow than a gaucho knows about horse shit—but wasn’t totally chalked up himself. He had two years left for smuggling cocaine paste in shampoo bottles. Good guy to know. Jorge’d heard his name already when he was living in Sollentuna. Best of all: Rolando was connected with the OG guys. That opened doors. Gave privileges. Guaranteed golden gains. Access to cell phones, weed, blow if you were lucky, porno rags, pruno. More smokes.

  Jorge was drawn to the gangs. But he also knew the danger. You tie yourself down. You make yourself vulnerable. You give them trust—They screw you.

  He hadn’t forgotten how he’d been burned. The Yugos’d sold him out. Wrapped him at the trial. He was doing time because of Radovan—cocksuckers’ cocksucker.

  They often sat in the chow hall and shot the shit. Him, Rolando, and the other Latinos. No Spanish. There was a risk that those who belonged to gangs be mistrusted by their own. Go ahead, talk to your countrymen and have a good time—but not so that They can’t understand.

  Today: a little over two weeks before he hit play on the plan. Had to be cool. It was impossible to escape totalmente solo, but he hadn’t even told Rolando anything yet. First, Jorge had to know the guy could be trusted. Had to test him somehow. Check up on how strong their friendship really was.

  Rolando: a homeboy who’d chosen the hard way. Good snow flow wasn’t enough to become a member of the OG. You had to be able to kick the shit out of anyone your leader thought had an ugly mug. Rolando’d done his part: The tattoos around the scars on his knuckles told their own loud, aggressive story.

  Rolando took a bite of rice. Talked broken Swedish with a mouth full of food: “Yo, paste even betta than powder. Like, it middle product, not finished. Get you in higher up. Don’t have to deal with them boys on the street. Yeah? Do business with real gangstas, fo’ real. Homeboys without heat on their ass all damn day. And, move easier. No fucking dust. Easier to hide.”

  Even if Jorge’d heard all of Rolando’s half-baked ideas by now, the slammer offered a first-class education. Jorge, receptive. Had learned. Listened. Knew a lot already, before he went in. After fifteen months in Österåker, he knew the business inside and out.

  J-boy: proud of himself. He knew all about the cocaine routes from Colombia via London. Where to score, what the price was, how to distribute, which middlemen to use, where to unload the shit. How to bulk it without the junkies knowing and how to cut it without the rich Stureplan set catching on. How to package it. Who to bribe, who to avoid, who to stay tight with. One of the latter: Radovan.

  Fuck.

  The chow hall was a good place for private talk. Enough noise so that no one could really hear what you were saying. What’s more, it wasn’t seen as hush-hush. No sneaking. Just chatting, openly.

  Jorge had to steer the conversation in the right direction. Had to know Rolando’s stance.

  “We’ve talked about this a thousand times. I know you’re into it. But I’m gonna stay away from the shit for a while. When I get outta here, I’m gettin’ the hell outta this cold-ass Nazi country. And I got no plans of becoming some fuckin’ flake myself.”

  “Winnin’ points. Never use. Only sell. Wisdom of the day.”

  Carefully, he tested Rolando.

  “You got good channels. Heavy hitters got your back, right? No one’s gonna touch you here. Fuck, you could break today and make it easy.”

  “Break? Not my game plan right now, hombre. Speakin’ of, yo you heard? Know that dude, OG guy, Jonas Nordbåge. Got done.”

  Jorge caught on. “I know who he is. Used to bang that centerfold chick, Hannah Graaf. The guy flew custody in Gothenburg, right?”

  “S’right. Same day the sentence. Seven and a half years for two simple robberies and third-degree assault. Dude a real CIT pro.”

  “What the fuck man, he fucked it up.”

  “Still a king. Listen. Muchacho broke a window and lowered down from the eighth floor. Fifty-six long feet. Five torn blankets. Beautiful, ey?”

  “Real pretty.”

  Jorge told himself, Keep going, Jorge-boy, keep going. Lead the discussion, read Rolando. Get him to say how he feels about me and breakouts. Subtly.

  “How’d they get him?”

  “Respect to ’im, but dude ain’t real slick. Hung out at bars in Gothenburg. Partied. Guess he wanted to meet a new Hannah with fat tits. Felt like a baller. Only thing he did, dyed his hair white and wore shades. Like, homey wanna get locked up?”

  Jorge silently agreed: totally loco to only dye your hair. Him, he was gonna play it safe. He said, “Had nothing to lose. Bet he thought, Fuck, even if they get me, I won’t get more months. They won’t add to seven and a half.”

  “Playa almost made it. Got him in Helsingborg.”

  “Pushing the exit?”

  “’Parently. Checked into a hotel with a fake name. When the Five-Oh plucked him, playa had a fake passport. Coulda worked. First to Denmark, then on. Homeb
oy probably got a stash somewhere. But somebody snitched. Tipped the Five-Oh off where he be. Probably somebody saw him at the bars.”

  “Anyone in the OG know he was gonna fly?”

  “Sorry, Jorge, can’t talk about shit like that.”

  “But wouldn’t you back an OG if he broke out?”

  “Does Pamela Anderson sleep on her back?”

  Bull’s-eye. Jorge-boy, get closer. Test him.

  Jorge knew how it was: Friends on the inside are not like friends on the outside. Other rules apply. Power hierarchies are clearer. Time inside counts. Number of times inside counts. Smokes count; roaches count more. Favors grant relationships. Your crime counts: rapists and pedophiles worth zero. Junkies and alkies way down. Assault and theft higher. Armed robbery and drug kingpins on top. Most of all: Your membership counts. Rolando, a friend according to the rules on the outside. According to the principles of the slammer: Playa batted in the major leagues, Jorge in the minor.

  Jorge swallowed a gulp of his soda. “One thing to support someone already out. But would you help someone escape?”

  “Depends. On risk and shit. Wouldn’t help just anyone. Would always support an OG. Fuck, amigo, I’d help you, too. You know. Never I’d keep my mouth shut for some fucking skinhead or Wolfpack puto. They know it, too. They’d help me never, neither.”

  Jackpot.

  Three-second silence.

  Rolando did something Jorge had never seen him do before. He put his utensils down properly on his plate. Slowly.

  Then he grinned and said, “Ey, Jorge, got plans or what?”

  Jorge didn’t know what to do. He just smiled back.

  Hoped Rolando was a real friend, one who didn’t betray.

  At the same time he knew: Friends on the inside play by different rules.

  2

  Four guys sat in a living room, pumped to party.

  JW with a backslick. And yes, he knew a lot of trash resented his hairstyle. Looked hatefully at him and called it a “jerkoff coif.” But Communists like that were clueless, so why should he care.

  The next guy had slicked-back hair, too. Boy number three sported a shorter style, every strand immaculately in place. A carefully chiseled side part cut through his hair like a ruler. The classic New England look. The last guy’s hair was blond, medium length, and curly—a tousled charm.

  The guys in the room were fine, fair kids. Creamy white. Clean features, straight backs, good posture. They knew they were sharp-looking boys. Boys in the know. They knew how to dress, how to carry themselves, how to act appropriately. They knew all the tricks. How to get attention. Girls. Access to the good things in life—24/7.

  The general vibe in the room—electric: We know how to party; it’s going no way but our way.

  JW thought, This is a good night. The boyz are on top. Fit for fight.

  As usual, they pregamed at Putte’s, the guy with the side part. The apartment, an attractive one-bedroom on swanky Artillerigatan, had been a gift from Putte’s parents on his twentieth birthday, the year before last. JW was familiar with the family. The father: a finance shark who brown-nosed his superiors and kicked down at anything and anyone beneath him. The mother: old money—the family practically owned half of Stockholm, in addition to hundreds of acres of farmland at a country estate in Sörmland. As one ought.

  They’d finished eating. The Styrofoam containers were still on the kitchen counter. Takeout from Texas Smokehouse on Humlegårdsgatan: high-end Tex-Mex with quality meat.

  Now they were drinking on the couches.

  JW turned to the curly-haired boy, nicknamed Nippe, and asked, “Shouldn’t we go soon?”

  Nippe, whose real name was Niklas, looked at JW. Replied in his shrill pretty-boy voice, “We’ve reserved a table for midnight. We’re in no hurry.”

  “Okay. Then we have time for another round of Jack and Coke.”

  “Yeah, well, when are we gonna taste the other coke?”

  “Ha, ha. Clever. Nippe, relax. We’ll have our hits when we get there. It’ll last longer.”

  The baggie with four grams burned in the inner pocket of JW’s jacket. The boyz usually took turns getting the weekend fix. The goods came from a darky, a blatte, who, in turn, bought from some Yugo gangster. JW didn’t know who the top dog was but guessed. Maybe it was the infamous Radovan himself.

  JW said, “Boys, I really went for it tonight. I brought four grams. That’s at least half a gram for each of us and still enough to give the girls.”

  Fredrik, the other guy with slicked hair, took a sip of his drink. “Can you imagine how much that Turk must make on us and all our friends?”

  “I’m sure he makes out fine.” Nippe smiled. Pretended to count money.

  JW asked, “What do you think his margins are? Two hundred per gram? Hundred and fifty?”

  The conversation moved on to other, more familiar topics. JW knew them by heart. Mutual friends. Chicks. Moët & Chandon. Certain things were always a given. It’s not like they couldn’t talk about other things. They weren’t idiots; they were verbally well-bred winners. But their interests didn’t expand unnecessarily.

  Finally, the talk landed on business ideas.

  Fredrik said, “You know, you don’t need that much money to start a company. A hundred thousand kronor’s enough. I think that’s the lowest capital stock. If we come up with a sweet idea, we can totally do it. Try to do some business, register a cool company name, appoint a board and a CEO. But, above all, buy stuff tax-free. How awesome would that be?”

  JW amateur-analyzed Fredrik. The guy was completely uninterested in people, which, in a way, was a relief. He’d never even asked where JW came from or anything else about his background. Mostly, he talked about himself, luxury brands, or boats.

  JW downed his Jack and Coke. Poured himself a strong G and T. “Sounds supersweet. Who’ll get the hundred thousand kronor?”

  Nippe interjected, “That’s easy enough, right? I like the idea.”

  JW was quiet. He thought about where he could get a hundred thousand from and already knew the answer. Nowhere. But he didn’t say anything. Played along. Grinned.

  Nippe changed the music. Putte put his feet up on the coffee table and lit a Marlboro Light. Fredrik, who’d just bought a new Patek Philippe, played with the wristband and recited aloud to himself, “‘You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.’”

  The latest hit gagaed from the stereo.

  JW loved these pregames. The conversation. The mood. These were boys with class. Good-looking boys. Always well-dressed boys. He checked them out.

  Button-down shirts from Paul Smith and Dior, and one specially made by a tailor on Jermyn Street in London. One from the brand A.P.C.—French—with an American collar and double cuffs. Two of the guys wore Acne jeans. Gucci on another: intricate designs on the back pockets. One wore black cotton slacks. The blazers were elegant. One from Balenciaga’s spring collection: double-breasted, brown; a somewhat short model with double flaps in the back. One was a charcoal pinstripe from Dior, a slim model with double pockets on one side. One was ordered from a tailor on Savile Row in London: visible seams at the cuffs and with a red silk lining. The wool was super 150s, no higher quality anywhere. The telltale sign of a nice suit: the fluidity of the lining, that it didn’t sag. This particular jacket’s lining was softer, more fluid, and had a better fit than anything that could be found in the stores in Sweden.

  One guy wasn’t wearing a blazer. JW wondered why.

  Finally, the shoes: Tod’s, Marc Jacobs, Gucci loafers with the classic gold buckle, Prada’s best-selling rubber shoes with the red logo on the bottom of the heel. Originally developed for Prada’s sailboat in the World Cup.

  On top of it all: slim black leather belts. Hugo Boss. Gucci. Louis Vuitton. Corneliani.

  JW appreciated the total value: 72,300 kronor. Excluding watches, cuff links, and gold signet rings with family crests stamped into them. Not bad.
/>   On the table: Jack Daniel’s, vanilla vodka, some gin, a half a bottle of Schweppes tonic water, Coca-Cola, and almost a full decanter of apple juice—someone had come up with the idea of making apple martinis but then only had one glass of it.

  The general consensus: This is not where we get drunk. We’ll get trashed at the club. A drinks table at Kharma was already reserved. Chicks were basically included.

  JW thought, What atmosphere, what buildup, what wonderful camaraderie. These were chill guys. The Stockholm night was theirs to conquer.

  He let his eyes scan the room. The ceiling was over ten feet high. Rich moldings. Two armchairs and a gray couch on top of a real Persian carpet. Four hundred thousand tiny knots tied by some shackled kid. A couple of Maxims, GQs, car and boat magazines were tossed on the couch. Against one wall stood three low bookshelves from the luxury design store Nordiska Galleriet. One was filled with CDs and DVDs. The second housed the stereo, a Pioneer—not big, but with good power in the four small speakers that were installed in the corners of the room.

  The last bookshelf was filled with books, magazines, and binders. A bound catalog of the Swedish aristocracy was among the books, as was Strindberg’s Collected Works and a bunch of high school yearbooks. Strindberg’s Collected had to have been a present from Putte’s parents.

  The TV was wide, extremely flat, and disgustingly expensive.

  Everyone wore their shoes inside—classic. The shoe question divided the Swedish indoor world. There are three types of people. The type who always walks in with shoes on and has the right attitude—is there anything worse than walking around in party attire and socks? The second type of person is the one who becomes insecure and checks out what everyone else is doing, who might keep them on if everyone else does. Wishy-washy, a turncoat. Finally, there’s the third type, who thinks you should always take your shoes off, who walks around soundlessly in sweaty socks, who only has himself to blame.