"No, but I know Roger Sundström on Solandergatan. Do you know him? Or Hans on Oli-Jansgatan out in Pitholm?"
Joachim dropped the subject. "You're charging too much for the chips, by the way. That's illegal. The stakes are too high."
"I can adjust the price according to the players. Nobody knows what anybody else pays for their chips, it doesn't say on them. I'm following the rules."
"You'll risk breaking the bank."
Annika stopped smiling. "There's only one way for a gambler to win at roulette, and that's to win straightaway, stop at once, and keep the winnings. And nobody who starts winning does that. It's a snap being a croupier. All you need to do is keep the people playing until they've lost all they've won."
Joachim smiled subtly. "I think we'll get along, you and me." He let his hand slide down her arm.
He went into his office. Annika turned around, feeling Sanna's eyes bore into her back. They're an item, she realized. Joachim and Sanna are a couple.
The sound of high heels coming down the spiral staircase made Annika look up. She couldn't believe her eyes. The TV presenter Patricia had told her about was teetering down the stairs of Studio 69 dressed in a miniskirt, stockings, and a see-through blouse showing the bra underneath.
"Hello, my friends," said the man in a squeaky voice.
"Welcome, madam," Sanna said, and flashed a flirtatious smile at him. "What little goodies can we tempt you with tonight?"
As the man named a few of the girls, Annika realized she was staring at him. She used to watch his show, irreverent panel debates with politicians and celebrities. She knew the man had a family.
He maneuvered himself into the strip bar with Sanna. Annika heaved a weary sigh. The shoes hurt her feet. For a moment, she contemplated taking them off; nobody would notice the difference behind the table, but at that moment some Italian guys showed up. Annika went up to them and talked to them in English. It didn't work. She tried French, no luck, but Spanish was okay.
They gambled away thirteen thousand, and Sanna's face got darker and darker the more the men lost.
She doesn't like me, Annika thought. She knows I'm Patricia's friend, and she sees me as a continuation of Josefin. Maybe it's not so strange.
She glanced down at her minimal sequined, sky-blue bikini, Josefin's work clothes.
The evening dragged and faded into intangible night. Down in the old garage it was always nighttime. Annika sat with her eyes closed in the bluish light of the locker room, feeling the tears burn inside her eyelids.
What am I doing here? she thought. Is there any chance I might slowly slip into this world and get comfortable? I could make more money modeling in the private rooms. Will I do that? What I'm doing with the price of the chips is illegal. I could go to jail if I get caught.
She put on more makeup. Her face looked pale without it.
Patricia came into the locker room and smiled encouragingly. "You're doing well, I hear."
Annika nodded. "Not bad."
Patricia looked proud. "I knew you were good."
Annika closed her eyes, I mustn't take it in, she thought, mustn't listen to it. I mustn't find my new affirmation here. I'm not going to make my career in a strip joint. I deserve better. Patricia deserves better.
She touched up her lipstick and went out.
***
In the small hours, Sanna disappeared into a private room with an older man.
"He's a regular," the hostess whispered as she left with the guy. "There are hardly any customers left. You get the money from them when they leave- the checks are on the desk."
Confused, Annika stood in front of the roulette table, not knowing the procedure. If she tried to get people to play roulette, then who would take the money if someone was leaving?
She made a quick decision to skip the roulette, and just then the TV guy appeared in the foyer.
"Where's Sanna?" Annika recognized the man's voice from the show.
"She's busy," Annika said, smiling. "Can I help you?"
The man put his card on the reception desk, and Annika anxiously licked her lips. She walked over to the desk and searched among the papers on it. There, she found the man's check.
She put the card in the machine and made out the credit card slip. She knew Sanna would get the cut on the sum; her code was logged in. The man signed the slip.
"Sweetie, are you leaving already?" a girl in the doorway squeaked. She was naked, with her pubes shaved off. She had pigtails and painted-on freckles.
"Oh, my little baby," TV man said, and gave her a bear hug.
"Just one moment, please," Annika said, and stole into the office. The room was empty. She put the credit card slip in the photocopier, shut her eyes, and prayed.
Dear God, please don't let it be noisy, don't let it be slow, let there be paper in the tray.
Rapidly and without a sound, the selenium-coated aluminum drum got to work underneath the glass; paper was released and fed into the machine; was sprayed with ink particles; then fixed and fed out again. She breathed out, but where the hell was she going to put the copy?
She quickly rolled it up into a hard tube, folded it in half, and pushed it in the crack behind the G-string- it was going to rub like hell.
"There we go," Annika said, and put the check and the slip on the desk.
The man was sucking at one of the baby doll's nipples. When the girl saw Annika, she pushed the man away. "I'm sorry," she said fearfully.
Annika blinked, puzzled. She suddenly realized the other girls saw her as a person of authority, maybe because Josefin had been one. She thought she'd try to make the most of it.
"Just don't let it happen again," she said sternly, and handed the man his receipt.
He left and the girl vanished into the bar. Annika waited for a couple of seconds, listening for noises from in there. The Muzak from the stage leaked out through the door, and she suddenly gave a shudder. It wasn't especially warm in here.
She slipped into the locker room, pulled out the photocopy, and pushed it down inside her shoe. She quickly returned to lean against the roulette table. She stood there until Sanna's hour in the private room was up.
"Everything okay?" the hostess wondered.
"Sure." Annika pointed to the credit card slip.
Sanna looked at the sum, smiled contentedly, and gave Annika a roguish look. "Do you pay your TV license?" Sanna wondered. She didn't expect a reply, just fanned herself with the slip, laughed to herself, and went into the office.
Annika smiled at the closed door.
***
Patricia was making tea. Annika sat on the couch in the living room, staring into the turquoise-gray dusk of the room. She had blisters from the horrible stilettos and was so tired she could cry.
"How can you stand it?" she said quietly.
"What?" Patricia said in the kitchen.
"Nothing," Annika said, just as quietly.
The feeling of disgust lay like an undefined sensation of nausea somewhere in her midriff, and as she closed her eyes, she saw the scrawny nakedness of the baby-doll girl.
"Here you go." Patricia placed the tray next to the phone on the small table.
Annika sighed heavily. "I don't know how I'm going to cope with another night. How do you do it?"
Patricia smiled faintly, poured out the tea, gave Annika a mug, and sat down next to her on the couch.
"Everybody uses you," Patricia said. "It's no worse than in any other place."
Annika drank some tea and burned her mouth. "You're wrong. It is worse. The girls in the club, including you, have crossed so many boundaries to end up where you are. You don't see it anymore."
Patricia swirled the lemon slice in her mug. "Maybe. Do you feel sorry for me?"
Annika gave it some thought. "No, not really. I guess you know what you're doing. You've stepped over the line of your own free will. It takes strength to do that, it shows a kind of flexibility. You're not the type to be scared and that's a quality."
Patri
cia gave Annika a searching look. "What about you? What boundaries have you crossed?"
Annika gave a lopsided smile and didn't reply.
Patricia put her mug on the floor, sighed quietly, and looked down at her hands. "That morning, that last night… Josefin and Joachim were fighting like mad. They were screaming at each other, at first in the office, then on the stairs. Josefin rushed out and he followed her."
Annika didn't say a word; she knew this was an important confidence. Patricia sat silent for a moment before continuing.
"Josefin wanted to quit the club. She wanted some time off before starting her course. She'd been admitted to university, the media program, but Joachim didn't want her to leave. He was trying to trap her, tie her to the club and make her give up her education. Jossie said she would leave anyway and that she'd made enough money for him to pay for ten breast operations. She split up with him, said they were over. They were fighting."
Patricia fell silent again and the sounds of dawn crept in through the open windows. The night bus stopping outside the street door in Hantverkargatan, the never-ending sirens of the fire trucks, the fall winds' whispers of chill and rain.
"They used to make love in that cemetery," Patricia whispered. "Joachim got a kick out of it, but Jossie thought it was scary. They used to climb the fence at the back where it's not so high. I thought it was horrible. Just imagine- among the graves…"
Annika said nothing and they sat in silence for a long time.
"I know what you're thinking."
"What?" Annika said in a hushed voice.
"You're wondering why she stayed with him. Why she didn't leave."
Annika sighed deeply. "I think I know. At first she was in love and he was kind to her. Then he started making demands, affectionate little demands that Josefin thought were cute. He had an opinion on who she saw, what she should do, how she should talk. Everything was hunkydory until the bubble burst and Josefin wanted to enter the world again. Study, go to the movies, talk on the phone to her friends. It pissed Joachim off, he demanded that she stop and do what he wanted, and when she didn't- he beat her up. Afterward he was full of remorse, crying and saying he loved her."
Patricia nodded. "How do you know all this?"
Annika smiled a mournful smile. "There are books on battered women. The tabloids run series of articles on the violence. The abuse usually follows a pattern; I'm sure Josefin's was no different. All the time she thought things would improve if only she'd change and become like he wanted her. Some days were probably quite good, and Josefin thought they were moving in the right direction. But the guy's craving for control only grew and he probably got more and more jealous. He criticized her for everything, in front of other people, eroding her self-esteem."
Patricia nodded. "It was like a slow brainwash. He made her doubt herself, told her she'd never cope with university. She was nothing but a lousy, fat whore, and the only one who could love her was him. Jossie cried more and more; toward the end she cried almost constantly. She didn't dare leave him, he'd swear he'd kill her if she tried."
"Did he rape her? Sexual violence is very common. Some men get excited when the woman is terrified… What's wrong?"
Patricia had put her hands over her ears, her eyes were tightly shut, and she was clenching her teeth.
"Patricia, what's wrong?"
Annika took the woman in her arms and rocked her slowly. Her tears poured down as hard as the rain outside. She shook uncontrollably.
"That was the worst," Patricia whispered when her tears were finally exhausted. "The worst of it all was when he raped her. Her screams were just too much."
Nineteen Years, Six Months, and Thirteen Days
I see him coming through the mists of memory, the pattern repeating, the chorus picking up. He starts by stomping around, working himself up into his usual rage, then cursing, pushing me, and shouting. The usual thing happens to me: my field of vision shrinks, my shoulders drop; with elbows pressed against my sides I hold my hands up to protect my head. I lose my focus, the sounds take over, paralysis sets in. A corner to sink into, a soundless plea for mercy.
His voice echoes in my head, I can't hear my own. The song of terror is wailing inside me, the nameless fear, the unarticulated horror. Maybe I try to scream, I don't know, his roar rising and falling. I'm transported, the warmth spreads, the redness appears. No, I don't feel any pain. The pressure is red and hot. The song fades under the hardest blows, jumps like the pickup on an old vinyl record, then returns a semitone higher. Horror, horror, fear and love. Don't hurt me! Oh, please, my darling, love me!
And he says
he will never
let me go.
Friday 7 September
Annika was dog-tired when the alarm went off. With a groan she switched it off. Her legs were aching, heavy as lead. The rain was still beating down on the windowsill, an abstract rhythm with an erratic beat.
She went and sat on the couch and made two phone calls. She was lucky: both men were in. She made a date with the first one for an hour later, the other for the following day. Then she crept back into bed and fought against sleep for half an hour. When she got out again, she was even more tired. She smelled of sweat, strong and pungent, but she didn't have the energy to go down to the shower. She rolled on some deodorant and put on a thick sweater.
He was already there, sitting at a window table staring at the rain streaming down the window. In front of him was a cup of coffee and a glass of water.
"Do you recognize me?" Annika held out her hand.
The man rose to his feet and smiled mockingly. "Sure. We've bumped into each other. Literally."
Annika blushed. They shook hands and sat down.
"What is it you want, exactly?" Q asked.
"Studio 69 is being creative with its bookkeeping. Joachim keeps two sets of books. The real ones, where the actual figures are entered, are only at the club occasionally."
Annika drank the police captain's water at one go.
Q raised his eyebrows. "Be my guest. I wasn't thirsty anyway."
"They're there at the moment and they'll be there until Saturday."
"How do you know?" the police captain said calmly.
"I've got a job there as a croupier. I'm not a journalist anymore. I've resigned from my job and left the union. The girls at the club are paid cash. They don't pay taxes or contributions."
"Who told you this?"
"Patricia. She enters the figures from the bar. And then I saw it myself this morning."
The police officer got up and walked over to the counter, bought another cup of coffee, and poured out two glasses of water. He put it all on the table. "You look like you could do with a shot of caffeine."
Annika drank some of the coffee. It was lukewarm.
"Why are you telling me this?" Q said in a low voice.
She didn't reply.
"Don't you see what you're doing?"
She drank some water. "What?"
"You're cooperating with the police. I thought that was beneath your dignity."
"I don't need to worry about protecting my sources anymore," Annika replied sharply. "I don't represent the media, so I can say what I like to the police."
He gave her an amused look. "Oh, no, a leopard never changes its spots. If I know you at all, you're writing the lead about our meeting in your head right now."
"Bullshit," she said, wincing. "You don't know me at all."
"Yes, I do. I know the journalist in you."
"She's dead."
"Bullshit to you. She's wounded and tired. But she's just taking a rest."
"I'm not going back."
"So you're going to be a croupier in strip joints for the rest of your life? Pity."
"I thought you thought I was a pain."
He grinned. "You are, a big pain in the ass. That's good, we need that so we know we're alive."
She looked at him suspiciously. "You're being sarcastic."
He sighed. "A littl
e, maybe."
"You could get him for the bookkeeping. I don't know the law, but there should be enough to at least shut the club down. I'm breaking the law myself, actually- illegal gambling at the roulette table. Joachim said it was okay."
"You'll get busted. Sooner or later."
"I'm going back tonight, then I'm done with it. I made eight thousand kronor last night. One more night and I'll be all right until I start getting my unemployment checks."
"That's what they all say."
Annika fell silent, shame burning on her face. She knew he was right. She stared at her hands. "I've done enough talking now. Now I want to listen."
The police captain got up and returned with a cheese roll. "This is absolutely off the record. If you ever write a word about it, I'll roast you slowly over an open fire."
"Unlawful threat."
He flashed a quick smile, then turned serious again. "You're right. As far as the police are concerned, the murder of Josefin Liljeberg has been cleared up."
"Then why don't you bring him in?" Annika said, a bit too loud.
Q leaned forward across the table. "Don't you think we would if we could?" he said in a hushed voice. "Joachim has a watertight alibi. Six guys have vouched for him being at the Sturecompagniet club until five A.M. and then they all went in a limousine to another party. They all tell exactly the same story."
"But they're lying."
The police officer chewed on his dry roll. "Of course." He swallowed. "The problem is, how do we prove it? A waiter at the club has confirmed that Joachim was there, but he can't say exactly when. Neither can he say when Joachim left. The driver of the limousine confirms that he drove a bunch of drunken guys from Stureplan to Birkastan, and Joachim has the receipt. The driver can neither confirm nor deny that Joachim was there; he couldn't see the guys at the far back. At least Joachim didn't ride in the front or pay. The girl who lives in the flat at Rörstrandsgatan says that Joachim fell asleep on her couch sometime after six. She's probably telling the truth."
"Joachim was at the club just before five," Annika said agitatedly. "He was fighting with Josefin. Patricia heard them."
Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed Page 31