Two Soldiers Read Free Page B

to see through.
    He weighed it in his hand.
    Two hundred grams.

Leon smiled at her, the slippery, shiny plastic bag in his hand , but maybe not enough for her to dare to smile back.
    “You’ll come back. Here. In exactly fourteen days.”
    Was he pleased, had she done well? She breathed in carefully, hesitated, and again. Then smiled.
    “Put it up. Put it up again, but then dump it before you come. You have to smell. But have nothing up there.”
    They were standing close. He wasn’t much taller than she was.
    She shouldn’t have smiled.
    Leon’s voice, raised again.
    “Whore, d’you understand?”
    His movements, angry.
    “ Whore , with your stupid fucking smile, you’re to smell but be empty, get it?”
    His breath. She nodded.
    “I get it.”
    He looked at her. I get it. You don’t get fuck all .
    Throughout the week, he’d made sure to mention that he was getting a visit, who was coming to visit, when she was coming again.
    Two hundred grams in two-gram capsules.
    Within a couple of days, every guard in every unit in Block D would know that a new and strong supply had got into D1 Left and they would all guess that this was how it got in.
    He stared at her until she looked away and then put a hand on his own stomach, where there was pressure in his side.
    He had taken eight condoms out of the packet that always lay beside the toilet roll at the head of the bed and filled each one with capsules, then swallowed them with cold water from the tap on the yellowing sink, and in a while he would throw up in another sink, in another cell.
    “Reza.”
    Österåker prison. One hundred grams.
    “Uros.”
    Storboda prison. One hundred grams.
    “Go there now.”
    Aspsås, Österåker, Storboda.
    A visit to three prisons, every second week.
    “I’m going there now.”
    “They’ve got fines. Both of them. Five thousand in cash.”
    “Five thousand?”
    “Yes. Give them what they’re expecting first. Then tell them that they’ve got fines. You understand, whore?”
    “I understand.”
    Leon went over to the metal plate on the wall between the doorframe and the mirror, and touched the red button without pressing it and then came back to her.
    “And Gabriel?”
    “Yeah?”
    “His report.”
    He was very close, his breath just as hot.
    “The kids have sold everything. Ninety thousand. And there’s more from Södertälje and maybe from Märsta.”
    Her voice almost a whisper, as if she was reading to herself, it was important to get it right.
    “Twelve houses in Salem and Tullinge. A hundred and forty-six thousand. Two debt enforcements in Vasastan. Fifty-five thousand. Two big barrels of gas from the Shell station in Alby. Nine thousand. A computer shop tomorrow, I think.”
    He nodded. She didn’t know if it was good enough. She hoped so.
    “And . . . one more thing. It’s important.”
    “Right?”
    “Gabriel said it was important to tell you that your phone’s being tapped.”
    Leon had kept his hand by the red button, but now he let it drop, looked at her.
    “Which one?”
    “He said . . . Gabriel, he said . . .”
    “ Which one , whore?”
    “He said . . . the one you share with Mihailovic.”
    She had remembered. She closed her eyes. His eyes, she didn’t like them.
    “And you are sure, whore , are you sure that’s what he said?”
    “Yes.”
    She didn’t want to be near him, his face was so tense. Instead of lashing out, as he turned back to the metal plate between the door and the mirror, he leaned toward the microphone and pressed the red button.
    “We’re done.”
    That crackling again.
    “ Central security .”
    “Jensen. We’re done.”
    “ Five minutes .”
    He was finding it hard to stand still, his breathing was irregular and his voice was raised.
    “Are you living there?”
    “Where?”
    “There.”
    Every time they were done, when they were standing there waiting, the same question.
    “Yes.”
    “In his room?”
    “Yes.”
    “All the