George Taylor Jr hadn’t been able to explain exactly what he meant by saying that Cesar Bekas ‘did a peepshow’. All he knew was that it was something very unpleasant that people threatened their enemies with.
Obviously, it might relate to something different, but Nadia had mentioned a peepshow too, and Sara had a feeling that it was no coincidence. They had been found the same day.
She was looking for the leader of Bekas’s gang, but neither he nor anyone else in the gang was picking up. She requested a uniformed patrol to stop by and look for them, but she didn’t have any great hopes of success.
Were there any other ways in?
Sara made her own deductions. Peepshows were normally part of the sex trade, an old-fashioned way of peeking, but Jojje and Cesar belonged to a completely different world. The heavily armed, extremely violent criminal world. If you combined those two worlds, Sara thought to herself, you ended up at SIN, the semi-legal strip club in Vasastan.
Officially, this was home to nothing more than striptease and ‘exotic dancing’, but Sara had seen all the small rooms in the basement with beds and stacks of towels. She harboured no doubts whatsoever about which services were offered down there. If the police raided the place, there was plenty of time for the male patrons to pull on their clothes and pretend to be enjoying a private dance while the police made their way down the steep staircase and into the narrow, winding corridors.
SIN was owned by a man called Peter Wäbel, a grotesquely toned former bodyguard who had suddenly – as he himself put it – ‘taken over’ the club from his boss. And after the boss had tried to get it back, he had been found shot inside his car round the back of Bromma Airport. Since then, SIN had been wholly Wäbel’s.
‘Sara Nowak,’ she said when he answered the phone. ‘I’ve got a question.’
Sara knew that Peter Wäbel could be just as frightening and obstinate when his own interests were threatened as he was pleasant and cooperative with the police and authorities when not under pressure. But Sara wasn’t after him – not this time.
‘Go for it,’ said Wäbel.
‘Peepshow,’ said Sara.
‘Watching or participating?’
‘Just information. I’ve heard rumours about a peepshow – is there anything like that in town?’
‘You mean a proper old-fashioned classic peepshow? Otherwise our club is a bit like a peepshow. “Look but don’t touch” and all that, you know.’
Sara didn’t know that at all – on the contrary she was convinced that all it was about was payment at a certain level to gain access to other services.
‘Otherwise there’s something like that in Södermalm,’ Wäbel added. ‘Real low-class stuff, not the kind of thing we do. We’re not competing for the same clientele.’
If they had been, then the other place would have been blown up or taken down in a hail of bullets – Sara was sure of it.
‘Whereabouts in Södermalm?’
‘At the end of Bondegatan, in a basement next door to the Co-op. We had to check it out to see whether we were competitors. Turns out we weren’t.’
‘How fortunate,’ Sara said with feigned sincerity.
‘It’s called Studio Clasper.’ Wäbel laughed. ‘Have you ever heard a less sexy name? It’s some kind of seedy wanking club for pissheads and other specials.’
Sara thanked him and hung up. Now she owed a pretty dodgy person a favour, but it had to be worth that.
Studio Clasper was online. It had a decidedly ugly website but it did include a phone number and the man who picked up agreed to meet Sara. But not at the studio he said, because they were filming.
‘It’s just a little low-budget thing,’ the voice on the phone said with a snuffle. Cold, sad or cokehead, Sara thought to herself. ‘It’s called Squirty Dancing,’ the voice continued with enthusiasm. ‘You get it? Instead of Dirty Dancing.’
‘I get it.’
Sara and the man from Clasper met at Kajas, the outdoor park café at Vitabergsparken. Which, it transpired, was a real oasis in the desert of the big city. Trees and undulating hillocks, a patch of gravel with round tables and parasols, colourful pennants fluttering in the gentle breeze and a whole family – mother and daughters – working behind the counter. The sight of the snuffling sex-club owner was quite a contrast to the surroundings.
‘Klas,’ he said offering his hand immediately after wiping his nose. Sara shook his hand anyway. ‘But they call me Bass Klas,’ he added in a tone that indicated he was pleased with the nickname. Sara assumed the epithet was the result of playing the bass, which his appearance suggested was the case. Long hair, skull rings on all his fingers, and a tatty denim waistcoat covered with Judas Priest, Motörhead and Slayer badges even though he was surely over sixty years old.
‘It’s just allergies – nothing to worry about, no illegal substances.’
Klas laughed at the joke before turning away to sneeze.
Sara looked around. The place was indescribably charming. It was somewhat overshadowed by the Sofia Church. She would never have found it if Bass Klas hadn’t told her about it. Sara thought to herself that she ought to come here with Anna some time. Then she wondered why her first impulse hadn’t been to come here with Martin. Unclear. But she decided right away that it was naturally her husband she should come here with. For a beer. When had she last got drunk outdoors? That had its own charm.
‘You have a peepshow,’ said Sara when Bass Klas had drunk the first gulp of his beer.
‘Yes,’ said Klas, nodding as if to show that he was proud of it. ‘Since ’84, actually. Shit, time flies. Twenty-five years. Well, twenty-six. No, bloody hell. It’s been thirty-six!’
He looked a bit taken aback.
‘I was on the prostitution task force for many years. I didn’t actually know about Studio Clasper.’
‘No, well, it’s not prostitution. And it’s not a big place in itself. It barely stays afloat. But what the hell, we toil on in this mercenary society.’
‘What do you do? What happens at Clasper?’
‘Oh, y’know. Some blokes get to look at some naked girls. Or girls getting naked. Well, girls and girls. They’re not exactly spring chickens.’
‘No?’
Bass Klas laughed.
‘No, Sonja’s been with us from the beginning, and Rita for at least fifteen years. She’s even a grandmother these days. Drives the grandkids to football at the weekends.’
‘Are they the only ones who work there?’
‘Yes. But I’m sure we’ve got room for one more.’
Klas smiled meaningfully, but it was such a kind smile that Sara couldn’t feel aggravated by the invitation.
‘Never anyone else?’
‘No.’
‘Not a girl called Nadia?’
‘No, sadly not. Pretty name. Would look good on a poster.’ He chuckled. ‘Classy for Klas.’
‘Cesar Bekas?’
‘Caesar? Shit – an emperor!’ He assumed a serious expression and raised his hand in a salute before laughing. ‘No, but seriously. We don’t know what the customers are called. Except for the regulars. But they’re more like friends. We often grab a beer once the clubs closes. And some of the others that come in occasionally we call stuff like “horn dog”, “sticky fingers” or “Skåne”. But I don’t know what they’re called. Er, on another subject entirely . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Could I get another beer?’
Sara went and bought a beer for the faded strip-club owner. Personally, she hadn’t even touched her mineral water even though she was sweating in the late summer heat. But she would have preferred a beer.
‘Is hitting the girls part of it?’ said Sara when she set down the beer on the table in front of Klas.
‘Which ones?’ he said in confusion, clearly distracted by the ice-cold bottle.
‘At the peepshow.’
‘What, if they don’t do as they’re told? Like a pimp in some ghetto joint? “Shut up, bitch”?’
‘I don’t know. Like a part of the show?’
‘No. Jesus Christ, that’s shabby – it’d ruin the number.’
‘Nadia was seriously assaulted.
‘I’ve actually heard about a place that does that, lets people really have a go at the girls. Really dodgy.’
‘What’s it called? The place I mean?’
‘Don’t know. Don’t think it has a name. And I don’t know where it is. You know it’s here, you hear rumours. Someone who knows someone who knows someone who says he went there.’
‘Not much to go on.’
‘Nope, but I know a girl who picks up girls for them – Vanessa. I think Rita knows her. I can try and get her number for you.’
‘Just to be nice?’
‘As a thank you for the beer.’ Bass Klas raised the empty bottles. ‘And because they take it too far. It’s not the done thing. Not violence. They’re ruining the fucking industry.’