Phantom(38)

The sweat was pouring down my back. I forced myself to meet his gaze. It was like staring into the fricking Antarctic. Nothing. Freezing cold wasteland. But I knew what he wanted. Number one: money.

‘The biker gang will let you sell ten grams on your own for every fifty grams you sell for them. Seventeen per cent. For me you sell only my stuff and you’re paid in cash. Fifteen per cent. You have your own street corner. There are three of you. Money man, dope man and scout. Seven per cent for the dope man, three per cent for the scout. You settle up with Andrey at midnight.’ He nodded towards the smaller choirboy.

Street corner. Scout. The fricking Wire.

‘Deal,’ I said. ‘Sling me the shirt.’

The old boy smiled, the sort of reptilian smile that serves to tell you roughly where in the hierarchy you are. ‘Andrey will sort it out.’

We continued to chat. He asked about my parents, friends, whether I had anywhere to live. I told him I lived with my foster-sister and lied no more than was necessary, for I had the feeling he already knew the answers. Only once was I out of my depth, when he asked why I spoke a kind of outdated Oslo East dialect when I had grown up in a well-educated family north of town, and I answered it was because of my father, the real one, he was from the East End of town. Fuck knows if that’s right, but it’s what I’ve always imagined, Dad, you walking around Oslo East, down on your luck, unemployed, hard up, a freezing flat, not a good place to bring up a kid. Or perhaps I talked the way I did to annoy Rolf and the posh neighbours’ kids. And then I discovered it gave me a kind of upper hand, a bit like a tattoo; people got scared, shied away, gave me a wide berth. While I was droning on about my life the old boy was studying my face and kept rapping the sapphire ring on the armrest, again and again, relentlessly, as if it were some kind of countdown. When there was a break in the questioning and the only sound was the rapping, I felt as if we were going to explode unless I broke the silence.

‘Cool shack,’ I said.

That sounded so blonde I blushed.

‘It was the head of the Gestapo’s residence in Norway from 1942 to 1945. Hellmuth Reinhard.’

‘S’pose the neighbours don’t bother you.’

‘I own the house next door as well. Reinhard’s lieutenant lived there. Or vice versa.’

‘Vice versa?’

‘Not everything here is so easy to grasp,’ the old boy said. Grinned his lizard smile. The Komodo dragon.

I knew I had to be careful, but could not resist. ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand. Odin pays me seventeen per cent, and that’s pretty much standard with the others as well. But you want a team of three people and you’re giving twenty-five per cent in total. Why?’

The old boy’s eyes stared intently at one side of my face. ‘Because three is safer than one, Gusto. My sellers’ risks are my risks. If you lose all the pawns it’s just a question of time before you’re checkmate, Gusto.’ He seemed to repeat my name to revel in the sound.

‘But the profit—’

‘Don’t concern yourself with that,’ he retorted sharply. Then he smiled and his voice was soft again. ‘Our goods come straight from the source, Gusto. It’s six times purer than the so-called heroin that’s diluted first in Istanbul, next in Belgrade and then in Amsterdam. Yet we pay less per gram. Understand?’

I nodded. ‘You can dilute it seven or eight times more than the others.’

‘We dilute it, but less than the others. We sell something that can be called heroin. You already know that, and it was why you were so quick to say yes to a lower percentage.’ The light from the flames glistened on his white teeth. ‘Because you know you’re going to sell the best product in town, you’re going to turn over three to four times as much as you do of Odin’s flour. You know that because you see it every day: buyers walking straight past the line of heroin pushers to find the one wearing …’

‘… the Arsenal shirt.’

‘The customers will know your goods are the best on day one, Gusto.’

Then he accompanied me out.

As he had been sitting with a woollen blanket over his knees, I had assumed he was a cripple or something, but he was surprisingly light on his feet. He stopped in the doorway, clearly not wishing to show his face outside. Placed a hand on my arm, above the elbow. Gently squeezed my triceps.

‘See you soon, Gusto.’

I nodded. I knew there was something else he wanted. I’ve seen you in action. From the inside of a limousine with smoked windows, studying me as if I was a fricking Rembrandt. That was how I knew I would get what I wanted.