Phantom Read Free Page A

But the same faces.
    On the road up to Tollbugata there were more of them. Since they had a connection with the reason for his return he tried to glean an impression. Tried to decide if there were more or fewer of them. Noted that they were dealing in Plata again. The little square of asphalt to the west of Jernbanetorget, which had been painted white, had been Oslo’s Taiwan, a free-trade area for drugs, established so that the authorities could keep a wary eye on what was happening and perhaps intercept young first-time buyers. But as business grew and Plata showed Oslo’s true face as one of Europe’s worst heroin spots, the place became a pure tourist attraction. The rising heroin trade and OD statistics had long been a source of shame for the capital, but nonetheless not such a visible stain as Plata. Newspapers and TV fed the rest of the country with images of stoned youths, zombies wandering the downtown in broad daylight. The politicians were blamed. When right-wingers were in power the left was in an uproar. “Not enough treatment centers.” “Prison sentences create users.” “The new class society creates gangs and drug trafficking in immigrant areas.” When the left was in power, the right was in an uproar. “Not enough police.” “Access for asylum-seekers too easy.” “Six out of seven prisoners are foreigners.”
    So, after being hounded from pillar to post, the Oslo City Council came to the inevitable decision: to save itself. To shovel the shit under the carpet. To close Plata.
    The man in the linen suit saw a youth in a red-and-white Arsenal shirt standing on some steps with four people shuffling their feet in front of him. The Arsenal player’s head was jerking left and right, like a chicken’s. The other four heads were motionless, staring only at the dealer, who was waiting until there were enough of them, a full cohort, maybe that was five, maybe six. Then he would accept payment for the orders and take them to where the dope was. Around the corner or inside a backyard, where his partner was waiting. It was a simple principle; the guy with the dope never had any contact with money and the guy with the money never had any contact with dope. That made it harder for the police to acquire solid evidence of drug-dealing against either of them. Nonetheless, the man in the linen suit was surprised, for what he saw was the old method used in the eighties and nineties. As the police gave up trying to catch pushers on the streets, sellers had dropped their elaborate routines and the assembly of a cohort andhad started dealing directly as customers turned up—money in one hand, drugs in the other. Had the police started arresting street dealers again?
    A man in cycling gear pedaled past, helmet, orange goggles and heaving, brightly colored jersey. His thigh muscles bulged under the tight shorts, and the bike looked expensive. That must have been why he took it with him when he and the rest of the cohort followed the Arsenal player around the corner to the other side of the building. Everything was new. Everything was the same. But there were fewer of them, weren’t there?
    The prostitutes on the corner of Skippergata spoke to him in heavily accented English—Hey, baby! Wait a minute, handsome!—but he just shook his head. And it seemed as if the rumor of his chasteness, or possible pecuniary difficulties, spread faster than he could walk, because the girls farther up showed no interest in him. In his day, Oslo’s prostitutes had dressed in practical clothing, jeans and thick jackets. There hadn’t been many of them; it had been a seller’s market. But now the competition was fiercer, and there were short skirts, high heels and fishnet stockings. The African women seemed to be cold already. Wait until December, he thought.
    He advanced deeper into Kvadraturen, which had been Oslo’s first downtown, but now it was an asphalt-and-brick desert with administrative buildings and offices for 250,000