‘Tomorrow,’ Kalle said and started to walk away.
‘I have to have some!’
‘We’re all out,’ he lied and signalled to Pelvis, his dealer, to walk on.
She started crying. Kalle felt no compassion, these people just had to learn that the shop shut at nine o’clock and that it was no good turning up at two minutes past. Of course he could have hung around till ten past, quarter past even, to sell to those who managed to scrape together the money at the last minute. But ultimately it was about getting the work/life balance right, knowing when he could go home. Nor would staying open for longer improve his profit margin as they had the monopoly on Superboy; she would be back when they opened tomorrow.
She grabbed his arm, but Kalle shrugged her off. She stumbled onto the grass and fell to her knees.
‘It’s been a good day,’ Pelvis remarked as they walked briskly down the path. ‘How much, do you think?’
‘
What do you think?
’ Kalle snapped at him. Even multiplying the number of bags by the price was beyond this moron. You just couldn’t get the staff these days.
Before they crossed the bridge, he looked over his shoulder to check they weren’t being followed. It was a habit he had acquired long ago, the result of his dearly bought experience of being a drug dealer carrying too much cash, a robbery victim who would never report anything to the police. Dearly bought experience acquired on a summer’s day by the river when he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes open and had nodded off on a bench with 300,000 kroner’s worth of heroin he was going to sell for Nestor. When he woke up, the drugs were gone, obviously. Nestor had sought him out the next day and explained that the boss had been kind enough to give Kalle a choice. Both thumbs – because he had been so clumsy. Or both eyelids because he had fallen asleep on the job. Kalle had chosen the eyelids. Two men dressed in suits, one dark-haired and one blond, had pinned him down while Nestor pulled out his eyelids and sliced them off with his hideous, curved Arabic knife. Afterwards Nestor had – also on the boss’s instructions – given Kalle money for a taxi to the hospital. Surgeons had explained that in order to give him new eyelids, they would need to graft skin from another area of his body and that he was lucky he wasn’t Jewish and hadn’t been circumcised. It turned out that the foreskin was the type of skin whose properties most closely resembled those of eyelids. All things considered, the operation had been a success and Kalle’s standard answer to anyone who asked how he’d lost his eyelids was that he’d had an accident with some acid and that the new skin had been grafted from his thigh. Someone else’s thigh, he explained, if the person asking was a woman in his bed, who demanded to see the scar. And that he was a quarter Jewish, in case she was wondering about that as well.
For a long time he had believed that his secret was safe, right until the guy who had taken over his job with Nestor had come over to him in a bar and asked in a loud voice if he didn’t think it stank of dick curd when he rubbed his eyes in the morning. The guy and his friends had roared with laughter. Kalle had smashed a beer bottle against the bar and glassed him, pulling the bottle out and glassing him again and again until he was quite sure the guy had no eyes left to rub. The next day Nestor visited Kalle and told him that the boss had heard the news and that Kalle could have his old job back, seeing as it was now available and that he approved of his resourcefulness. Since that day Kalle never closed his eyes until he was absolutely certain that everything was under control. But all he could see now was the pleading woman on the grass and a solitary jogger with a hoodie.
‘Two hundred grand?’ Pelvis guessed.
Moron.
After walking through Oslo’s eastern centre and the more dubious but character-building streets of Gamlebyen for fifteen minutes, they entered an abandoned factory area through an open gate. Tallying up shouldn’t take them more than an hour. Apart from them there was only Enok and Syff, who sold speed by Elgen and Tollbugata, respectively. Afterwards they had to cut, mix and wrap new bags for tomorrow. Then he could finally go home to Vera. She had been sulking recently. The Barcelona trip he had promised her hadn’t happened because he had been busy dealing all spring, so he had promised her a trip to Los Angeles this August instead. Unfortunately his criminal record had led to his visa application being turned down. Kalle knew that women like Vera weren’t patient, they had options, so he had to screw her regularly and dangle trinkets in front of her greedy almond eyes to keep her. And that took time and energy. But also money, which meant more work. He was caught between a rock and a hard place.
They crossed an open area with oil-stained gravel, tall grass and two lorries with no tyres permanently parked on Leca blocks, and jumped up onto a loading ramp in front of a red-brick building. Kalle entered the four-digit code on the panel, heard the lock buzz and they opened the door. Drum and bass sounds pounded towards them. The council had converted the ground floor of the two-storey factory into rehearsal rooms for young bands. Kalle had hired a room on the first floor for a peppercorn rent under the pretext of running a band management and booking agency. They had yet to secure any band a single booking, but everyone knew these were difficult times for the arts.
Kalle and Pelvis walked down the corridor towards the lift while the front door slowly closed on stiff springs behind them. Through the noise Kalle thought for a moment that he could hear running footsteps on the gravel outside.
‘Three hundred?’ Pelvis volunteered.
Kalle shook his head and pressed the button for the lift.
Knut Schrøder laid down his guitar on top of the amplifier.
‘Fag break,’ he said and headed for the door.
He knew that his fellow band members were rolling their eyes at each other. Another fag break? They had a gig at the youth club in three days and it was a sad fact that they had to rehearse like maniacs so as not to sound completely crap. Knut thought the other band members were a bunch of choirboys: they didn’t smoke, rarely drank alcohol and had never seen a joint let alone touched one. How could that ever be rock ’n’ roll? He closed the door behind him and heard them start the song from the top without him. It didn’t sound too bad, but was totally lacking in soul. Unlike him. He smiled at the thought while he passed the lift and the two empty rehearsal rooms along the corridor on his way to the exit.
It was exactly like the best bit in the Eagles DVD
Hell Freezes Over
– Knut’s secret guilty pleasure – when the band rehearses with the Burbank Philharmonic Orchestra and the orchestra plays ‘New York Minute’ frowning with concentration and Don Henley turns to the camera, wrinkles up his nose and whispers: ‘. . . but they don’t have the
blues
. . .’
Knut passed the rehearsal room whose door was always open because the lock was damaged and the hinges bent so that it was impossible to close it. He stopped. There was a man inside with his back to him. In the past vagrants looking for instruments or equipment that could readily be converted into cash constantly broke into the building, but that had stopped once the booking agency on the first floor had moved in and spent money on a new, solid front door with an entry-code lock.
‘Hey, you!’ Knut said.
The guy turned round. It was difficult to work out what he was. A jogger? No. Yes, he was wearing a hoodie and tracksuit bottoms, but he wore smart, black leather shoes. Only vagrants dressed that badly. But Knut wasn’t scared, why should he be? He was as tall as Joey Ramone and wore the same leather jacket. ‘What are you doing here, man?’
The guy smiled. Which meant he couldn’t be a member of a biker gang. ‘Just a bit of clearing up.’
That sounded plausible. It was what happened to the communal rehearsal rooms; everything was trashed or stolen and no one ever took responsibility for keeping them clean. The window was still covered by sound-insulating sheets, but the only remaining instrument was a shabby bass drum where someone had painted ‘The Young Hopeless’ in Gothic lettering on the drumhead. On the floor among cigarette butts, broken guitar strings, a solitary drumstick and some duct tape, was a desk fan which the drummer had presumably used to stop himself from overheating. Plus a long jack cable which Knut could have checked to see if it was working, but which was bound to be faulty. Fair enough, jack cables were unreliable consumables, the future was wireless and his mother had promised Knut that she would sponsor a wireless system for his guitar if he quit smoking, an incident which had inspired him to write the song ‘She Sure Drives a Hard Bargain’.
‘Isn’t it a bit late for a council worker to be still at it?’ Knut said.
‘We’re thinking of rehearsing again.’
‘We?’
‘The Young Hopeless.’
‘Ah, you’re with them?’
‘I used to be their drummer. I thought I saw the back of the other two guys when I came in, but they disappeared up in the lift.’
‘No, they’re with a band management and booking agency.’
‘Oh? Could they be useful to us?’
‘I don’t think they’re taking new clients. We knocked on their door and were told to fuck off.’ Knut grinned, took a cigarette from the packet and stuck it between his lips. Perhaps the guy was a smoker and would have a fag outside with him. They could chat about music. Or kit.
‘I’ll go and check anyway,’ the drummer said.
The guy looked more like a vocalist than a drummer. And it struck Knut that it might be a good idea if this guy were to talk to the booking people, he seemed to have something about him . . . some charisma. And if they opened the door to him, perhaps Knut himself could stop by later.
‘I’ll come with you to show you where it is.’
The guy looked reluctant. Then he nodded. ‘Thank you.’
The big goods lift moved so slowly that Knut had enough time to explain in detail why the Mesa Boogie amplifier was awesome and delivered a proper rock sound.
They stepped out of the lift, Knut turned left and pointed to the blue metal door, the only door on the floor. The guy knocked. A few seconds later a small hatch at head height opened and a pair of bloodshot eyes appeared. Just like the time Knut had tried it.
‘What do you want?’
The guy leaned closer to the hatch, probably in an attempt to see what was behind the man in the door.
‘Would you consider booking gigs for the Young Hopeless? We’re one of the bands that rehearse downstairs.’
‘Fuck off and don’t show your face here again.
Capisce?
’
The guy, however, remained close to the hatch and Knut could see his eyes dart from side to side.
‘We’re quite good. Do you like Depeche Mode?’
A voice rang out from somewhere behind the bloodshot eyes. ‘Who is it, Pelvis?’
‘Some band.’
‘Get rid of them, for fuck’s sake! And get back to work, I wanna be home by eleven.’
‘You heard the boss.’
The hatch slammed shut.
Knut walked the four steps back to the lift and pressed the button. The doors opened reluctantly and he entered. But the guy had stayed put. He looked at the mirror the booking agency had put up at the top of the wall to the right when you exited the lift. It reflected their metal door, God only knew why. True, this wasn’t Oslo’s nicest neighbourhood, but for a booking agency they were remarkably paranoid. Perhaps they stored a lot of cash from gigs in their office? He had heard that well-known Norwegian bands were paid half a million for the biggest festival jobs. Another reason to keep rehearsing. If only he could get that wireless system. And a new band. With soul. Perhaps he and the new guy could join forces? The guy had finally returned to the lift, but was holding a hand in front of the sensors so the doors could not close. Then he withdrew his hand and studied the fluorescent lighting in the lift ceiling. On second thoughts, no. Knut had spent enough time working with psychos.
He went outside to smoke his cigarette while the guy returned to the rehearsal room to clear up. Knut was sitting on the flatbed of one of the rusted trucks when the guy came out.
‘I reckon the others are late, but I can’t get hold of them because my phone battery is dead,’ he said, holding up a mobile that looked very new. ‘So I’m off to get some cigarettes.’
‘Have one of mine,’ Knut said, holding out the packet. ‘What kind of drums have you got? No, let me guess! You look old-school. Ludwig?’
The guy smiled. ‘Thank you, that’s kind of you. But I only smoke Marlboro.’
Knut shrugged. He respected people who were loyal to their brand, be it drums or cigarettes. But
Marlboro
? That was like saying you would only ever drive a Toyota.
‘Peace, man,’ Knut said. ‘Laters.’
‘Thanks for your help.’
He watched the guy walk across the gravel towards the gate, before he turned round and came back.
‘I’ve just remembered the code to the door is on my mobile,’ he said with a slightly embarrassed smile. ‘And . . .’
‘It’s gone dead. 666S. I thought of it myself. Do you know what it means?’
The guy nodded. ‘It’s the Arizona police code for suicide.’
Knut blinked several times. ‘Is it?’
‘Yep. The “S” stands for suicide. My dad taught me that.’
Knut saw the guy disappear out of the gate and into the light summer evening as a gust of wind caught the tall grass over by the gate and made it sway back and forth like a concert audience in response to some sentimental ballad.
Suicide
. Bloody hell, that was so much cooler than 666 Satan!
Pelle looked in the rear-view mirror and rubbed his bad foot. Everything was bad; business, his mood and the address which the customer in the back had just given him, the Ila Centre. So, for now, they were stationary in what was practically Pelle’s regular spot in the cab rank in Gamlebyen.
‘You mean the hostel?’ Pelle asked.
‘Yes. But now it’s called . . . Yes, the hostel.’
‘I don’t drive anyone to the hostel without being paid up front. Sorry, but I’ve had some bad experiences.’
‘Of course. I hadn’t thought of that.’