Death Angels (13 page)

“Do you think I’m too soft to be a police officer?” Bergenhem asked over dinner. “Like I’m not up to the job?”

“No.”

“Be honest.”

“How could I say you’re too soft? The softer, the better.”

“To be a policeman?”

“What?”

“Too soft to be a policeman?”

“It’s a good thing.”

“To be too soft?”

“It’s the kind of job where you get hard too fast, and that’s the worst thing that can happen.”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I doubt if I’ll make it through the day.”

“Don’t let go of that doubt.”

“What?”

“Don’t let yourself get stiff and hard.”

“So it’s better to be soft?”

“It’s much better to be soft like overcooked asparagus.”

“But sometimes I’m more like raw asparagus, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Not all of me.”

“What part of you?” She reached across the table and squeezed his biceps. “Overcooked asparagus.”

“I’m not talking about anything above my waist.”

Bergenhem stepped inside Bolger’s bar. He’s just as tall as Winter, Bergenhem thought, but seems twice as big. It could be his leather vest, or his features. You’ve been here for three minutes and his expression hasn’t changed. He’s as old as Winter, but until people get past forty, their age is always hard to pin down.

“You don’t strike me as a restaurant goer,” Bolger said.

“No.”

“Not much for nightlife?”

“It depends on the night.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Bolger turned toward the rows of bottles behind him. “Since Erik sent you, have one on the house. Even if you’re not used to sinning in broad daylight.”

“I’ll take some juice, if you don’t mind.”

“Ice?”

“No, thanks.”

Bolger found a carton of juice in the refrigerator underneath the bar and filled a glass from the hanging shelf above. “I’m afraid that I’m not all that familiar with the part of the industry you’re after,” he said.

The drink had a tangy sweetness over the orange flavor that Bergenhem couldn’t place.

“Clubs have been sprouting up like weeds in this city over the past few years,” Bolger continued, “and I’m not talking about restaurants either. It’s all happened so fast I’ve pretty much lost count.”

“Illegal clubs?”

“That may be an accurate way to describe them, but most have licenses these days. Which only goes to show that crime pays, right?”

“In what way?”

“You open an illegal club and a week later, bam, you’re holding a license in your grubby little hands.”

“I see.”

“After two weeks, you close the joint down and start all over someplace else. But that’s all old hat to you guys.”

“Some of us, anyway.”

“That’s not exactly the information you were looking for, is it?”

“I’m grateful for anything you can give me.”

“Like what’s going on in the illustrious porn world?”

“For example.”

“What does Erik expect to find out, anyway?”

Bergenhem took another gulp of his juice.

“The industry has grown,” Bolger continued. “It’s a different scene from back when I played a bit part.”

“What’s so different now?”

“It’s a lot more than tits and asses, to put it bluntly.”

“Hardcore?”

Bolger’s teeth gleamed in his dark face and the windowless room. “More like supercore. From the little I’ve seen, what goes in isn’t as important anymore as what comes out. Or both at the same time, if you catch my drift.” He took down a glass, filled it with beer and sipped it once the foam had settled. “I got out of there just in time.”

“Do they have illegal joints too?”

“Illegal strip joints? It depends on how you look at it.”

“I’m not following you.”

“There’s the part that the general public sees—a magazine rack, a few books, sex toys, peep shows and a couple of large screening rooms.”

“Strippers?”

“They’re called exotic dancers.”

“And?”

“What?”

“You said that’s just what the public sees.”

“Now, I’m going strictly by hearsay. But one or two of those places have a room where you can find things that are a little out of the ordinary. Magazines with a special twist, maybe movies.”

“Movies?”

“Movies where the actors engage in unusual acts.”

“Unusual acts?”

“Don’t ask me what they are, but it’s no Sunday school picnic.”

“You know that these movies exist?”

“That’s what they tell me, and also that there are a couple of small, anonymous joints that don’t even pretend to be anything else.”

“Where?”

Bolger threw out his hands.

“Can you look into it?” Bergenhem asked.

“Maybe. It might take a little time, though. I’ve got to watch my step.”

“Who are the customers?”

“You ask as if I knew the answer.”

“What’s your best guess? As opposed to the customers you had, or the ones who look for the ordinary stuff.”

The sunlight from the other room suddenly dimmed, and Bolger put on a pair of metal-frame glasses with thin lenses.

They add character to his face, Bergenhem thought.

“My best guess? I don’t think there’s that much of a difference. Interest breeds interest, like when you start with beer and move on to the harder stuff. Or from smoking grass to shooting up.”

“You develop more of an appetite?”

“Some people just want more and more. It’s hard to say where it all stops. Others are sexually aroused by the fantasy of being strangled or having a limb cut off. Who knows what kind of movies they like to watch?”

“Where can I find them?” Bergenhem asked.

“People who dream about somebody cutting off their leg?”

“All of these sick people. When they’re not at a club, I mean, or at home, or in a hotel room.”

“Since I drive a BMW, I’d say in Volvo’s boardroom. Or in the boardroom of your choice. Or on the county commission. There are crazy people everywhere.”

“Creepy.” Bergenhem got up.

“Be careful out there. I’m not kidding.”

Bergenhem waved from the doorway and walked out into the sunset. The wind swooped down from the rooftops and raised his collar. A glass broke somewhere behind him.

MACDONALD DODGED THE OBSCENITIES THAT THE FRUlT STAND
vendors screamed at each other across the intersection. He was at the corner of Berwick and Peter streets in Soho. Just look at what they’ve done to our proud fruit market tradition, he thought. Covent Garden closed, everything driven out of downtown.

This was what has become of it: half-drunk men slipping on banana peels, a few pitiful stands for a handful of curious tourists and ten times as many junkies. Soho doesn’t swing anymore, it crawls—at least here, where an empty lot is the most pleasant sight for miles around.

He turned up the collar of his raincoat against the drizzle and stepped over a crushed beefsteak tomato. Walkers Court was so short, unassuming and shoddy that it didn’t even appear in the new edition of a
London A-Z
street atlas. Maybe they excluded it on purpose, he thought. It’s not the kind of street you feel like bragging about to rosy-cheeked Italian and Scandinavian tourists straight from Heathrow and Gatwick.

Walkers Court was porn without silk sheets or the pink young models who show their pee hole in
Hustler,
Macdonald thought as he shook his head at a doorman who beckoned him into one of the theaters. It was more for sweaty junkies in rags—low-budget sex for the masses, books, magazines and videos for those who came to see themselves as they might have been in another life.

Maybe they bought the fantasyware in these sophisticated stores. Just what you need in certain situations. Or how about this leash or that noose? This is a free country. We’re all entitled to a personal life. Some people light a cigarette in the privacy of their own home; others like to poop in the faces of strangers.

He passed by the biggest bookstore on the street. It looked out of place with its advertisements featuring the latest in fine literature for the educated middle class: V. S. Naipaul and Jonathan Raban, a new biography of Bruce Chatwin.

Macdonald knew that the owner was a complex character. The ground and upper floors were bright and cheerful, overflowing with novels, poetry, travelogues and cookbooks. The basement, which you got to by descending a stairway on the other side of a curtain, was a different world altogether. Magazines with titles like
Over Forty
and
Life Begins at Fifty
fearlessly defied the youth culture. The room was always full of customers. Just like that one, Macdonald thought as a man with a flat brown bag hurried out of the store.

Macdonald promised himself that he would read more as soon as he retired from the police force. He was thirty-seven, and he had served Queen and country since he was twenty-three. Only eleven years left. After that he could be a private detective and chase runaway teenagers from Leeds through the bowels of London. Or work as a security guard at Harrods and keep an eye on the Oyster Bar. Or arrange birthday parties for his grandchildren at his house in Kent, never more than ten steps from a malt. He’d let them pull on his ponytail as much as they wanted, he thought as he waited for a car to pass on Brewer Street. Crossing the intersection, he followed Rupert Street for a quarter of a block, nodded at a black man in a leather jacket and entered a theater under a flashing neon sign that said PEEP SHOW.

It took him a few seconds to get used to the shadows. Passing the cashier’s booth, he knocked on a door to the left of the main entrance. He stood and listened to the moans that echoed in the darkness. Somebody was screaming, “Yes, yes, YES, YES,” but it didn’t sound very convincing.

The door opened a couple of inches and another black man stared out at him. After the door closed again, Macdonald heard a rattling sound and it was flung wide open.

The man stretched out his hand and nodded for Macdonald to enter. “Welcome, Mr. Investigator.”

“You don’t skimp on security here, do you, Frankie?”

“Not a chance.”

They shook hands and Macdonald stepped into the office. No larger than a hundred square feet, the room was thick with humidity, along with the smell of vinegar and grease from half-eaten fish and chips on the pockmarked desk. A poster celebrating the pleasures of life in Jamaica was taped to the wall above, its bottom right corner curled, as if protesting the romanticism of it all. Next to the plate of leftovers was a notepad, a pen and a keyboard. The computer screen on the right side of the desk flickered more than it should. Cheap crap, Macdonald thought.

“Sorry I couldn’t offer you my lunch,” Frankie said. “But I’d be glad to order some more.”

“Looks like it was pretty tasty.”

“As English as can be. Should I send Johnny Boy to get another?”

“No thanks, the savory smells are enough for me.”

Frankie flicked his shoulder as if he were brushing off a thank-you after having paid for a five-course meal at Wheeler’s. “It’s your call. So what can a hardworking businessman do for the guardians of law and order?” he asked, taking a chair from behind the desk. “Have a seat, I’ll go get another one.”

He returned carrying a big, clunky chair with red imitation leather upholstery and gray stuffing that stuck out through the loose seams.

Frankie followed Macdonald’s eyes. “It might be ugly, but it’s comfortable as hell.” He sat down but popped back up when a young woman walked in with a tray. After putting a stainless steel teapot, two cups and saucers, a little pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar on the desk, she smiled, bowed her head slightly and left the room. Frankie sat down again and poured a cup for each of them.

“Just what I needed.” Macdonald leaned forward.

Frankie stood up a second time.

“What is it now?”

Frankie walked out and returned with a plate of cookies.

“Are the rituals just about over?”

“Now they are. Jamaicans are crazy about ritual. We come from a different world than you do.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You were born in London.”

“A zebra never changes its spots. Genes, you know.”

“Genes have always fascinated me.”

“Me too.” Frankie picked up a nail file and inspected his left index finger. “But I don’t expect that you came all the way here to talk about genetic code.”

“You haven’t given me much of a chance to explain why I’m here.”

“I’m all ears.”

“You aren’t nervous, are you?”

“Me, nervous? Because I’m not used to such fine company, you mean?”

“Don’t ask me why.”